Question 61

A student was unable to correctly clap to identify each sound heard in 5 of 8 spoken words.

This observation indicates that the student struggles with phonemic awareness, specifically in segmenting sounds, which is a crucial skill for reading development.

A) given 5 written stimulus words was unable to encode a rhyming word for each

While this option indicates a difficulty with rhyming, it does not directly assess phonemic awareness in terms of sound segmentation. Encoding rhymes is a related skill but does not provide evidence of the student's ability to identify individual sounds, which is the focus of phonemic awareness.

B) incorrectly identified the number of words in 3 of 6 sentences read aloud by the teacher.

This option reflects a challenge in understanding sentence structure or word count but does not specifically address phonemic awareness. It does not provide direct evidence of the student’s ability to recognize or manipulate sounds within words.

C) was unable to correctly clap to identify each sound heard in 5 of 8 spoken words

This choice directly illustrates a student's difficulty in phonemic awareness, as clapping to identify sounds is a common exercise used to assess a student's ability to segment sounds. The student's failure to do this in a majority of the words indicates a significant struggle with this foundational skill.

D) did not recognize “th” as a single sound when reading a list of 20 vocabulary words 8 of which contained the letter combination

This option suggests a difficulty with recognizing digraphs, which is a component of phonics rather than phonemic awareness. While it indicates a challenge, it does not capture the broader aspect of sound segmentation that is crucial for learning phonemic awareness skills.

Conclusion

The choice that most clearly indicates a student’s difficulty with phonemic awareness is option C, as it directly assesses the student's ability to identify and segment sounds through a physical activity. Other options, while indicative of various challenges, do not provide as direct evidence of phonemic awareness difficulties, making them less relevant to the question.