Which activity best demonstrates blending phonemes into a word?

• A. Breaking a word into phonemes.
• B. Saying the individual sounds in order to pronounce a whole word, e.g., /k/ /æ/ /t/ -> cat.
• C. Replacing a phoneme to form another word.
• D. Counting syllables.

Answer: (B)

Blending phonemes into a word means taking separate sounds and merging them to pronounce the whole word. The best activity shows a listener hearing each sound in order and then saying them together to form the word, like /k/ /æ/ /t/ becoming “cat.” This demonstrates blending, a foundational skill in phonemic awareness that helps with decoding because students learn to combine sounds to recognize spoken words and map them to print. The other options are different skills: breaking a word into phonemes is segmentation, not blending; replacing a phoneme is sound manipulation or substitution; counting syllables focuses on syllable awareness rather than individual sounds. So the blending activity best demonstrates blending phonemes into a word.