New Hampshire Foundations of Reading Practice Test

In phonemic awareness, phoneme deletion involves:

1. Adding a phoneme to a word

2. Taking away a phoneme to create a new word

3. Identifying a particular phoneme

4. Segmenting phonemes into syllables

The correct answer is: Taking away a phoneme to create a new word

Phoneme deletion is a fundamental skill in phonemic awareness that refers specifically to the process of taking away a phoneme from a word to form a new word. This activity helps learners understand how sounds can be manipulated within words, which in turn supports their reading and spelling development. For example, if you take the word "tree" and delete the initial phoneme /t/, it becomes "ree." This skill is crucial in helping students develop the ability to play with sounds, ultimately enhancing their decoding and encoding strategies when reading and writing. The other options present concepts related to phoneme manipulation but do not accurately describe phoneme deletion. Adding a phoneme would involve creating a new sound rather than removing one, identifying a phoneme refers to recognizing sounds without necessarily altering the word, and segmenting phonemes involves breaking a word into its individual sounds rather than removing one from the word's structure.