During an encoding assessment, which phonemic awareness skill does a student struggle with if they write "led" for "lend"?

In the context of phonemic awareness, if a student writes "led" for "lend," they are demonstrating difficulty in segmenting sounds. Segmenting involves breaking down a word into its individual phonemes, or sounds. The student’s substitution of "led" instead of "lend" illustrates that they are not properly identifying and separating the phonemes in the target word.

In this case, "lend" consists of specific sounds: /l/, /ɛ/, /n/, and /d/. When the student produces "led," they are not correctly segmenting the initial sound /l/, the vowel sound /ɛ/, and the final sounds /n/ and /d/. Therefore, their struggle lies in effectively breaking apart the sounds that make up the word "lend." Recognizing these distinct phonemes is essential for accurate spelling and encoding, and the error reflects a challenge in this foundational skill.