Which of the following phonemic skills best supports reading development?

Phoneme blending is a critical skill that supports reading development as it involves the ability to combine individual sounds or phonemes to form words. This skill is essential for decoding, enabling students to read unfamiliar words by sounding them out. When children learn to blend phonemes, they can take separate sounds like /b/, /a/, and /t/ and merge them into the word "bat". This process helps with the understanding of how letters correlate with their corresponding sounds, leading to improved reading fluency and comprehension.

Moreover, blending forms a foundational component of phonics instruction, which is key to developing proficient reading skills. As students become adept at this skill, they also enhance their overall ability to decode words, recognize patterns in language, and develop a love for reading through increased success and confidence.

Other phonemic skills such as segmentation or substitution, while important in their own right, serve different purposes in the reading process. For example, segmentation helps learners break words into their constituent sounds, which is more aligned with spelling and phonetic awareness than initial reading skills. Phoneme identity helps in recognizing sounds in different words, but does not directly aid in the practical application of reading similar to blending does.