What skill involves blending sounds to create words?

The skill of blending sounds to create words is best represented by manipulating sound. This process involves taking individual phonemes (the smallest units of sound) and combining them to form a coherent word. For example, when a child hears the sounds /c/, /a/, and /t/ and blends them together, they produce the word "cat."

Manipulating sound is a crucial component of phonemic awareness, which is foundational for reading development. It helps young learners understand that words are made up of distinct sounds and that these sounds can be joined together in meaningful ways. This skill lays the groundwork for more complex literacy tasks, such as decoding and spelling.

While decoding involves translating written words into sounds, and listening is about receiving auditory information, both of these skills rely on the foundational ability to manipulate sound. Writing, on the other hand, pertains to producing written text rather than the auditory blending of sounds. Hence, manipulating sound focuses specifically on the blending of phonemes, making it the most appropriate answer to the question.