Glossary

Phoneme

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a spoken language that changes the meaning of a word.

English has roughly 44 phonemes. The words pin and bin differ by one phoneme. Phonemes are sounds, not letters; the sound at the start of ship is one phoneme spelled with two letters.

Why it matters for the record

When a student confuses two sounds repeatedly, name the phonemes in the note so the pattern is searchable later.

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