Oregon Educator Licensure Assessments (ORELA) Practice Exam

Which phonetic skill involves recognizing the individual sounds that comprise a specific word?

1. Phoneme isolation

2. Phoneme identity

3. Phoneme deletion

4. Phoneme blending

The correct answer is: Phoneme isolation

Phoneme isolation involves the ability to identify and recognize the individual sounds, or phonemes, that make up a specific word. For instance, when a student hears the word "cat," they can identify the initial phoneme /k/, the medial phoneme /æ/, and the final phoneme /t/. This skill is crucial in developing phonemic awareness, which is foundational for reading and spelling. Phoneme identity, on the other hand, focuses on recognizing the same sounds in different words. Phoneme deletion requires a person to recognize and remove a specific phoneme from a word to create a new word. Phoneme blending involves combining individual sounds to form a word. These skills are important, but they do not focus specifically on isolating individual phonemes within a single word.