Which activity best illustrates phoneme blending?

The activity that best illustrates phoneme blending is one where students are asked to say the individual sounds /h/, /a/, and /t/ and then identify the word that these sounds combine to form, which in this case is "hat." Phoneme blending involves the skill of taking individual phonemes—or the smallest units of sound in a language—and merging them together to identify the complete word. This is an essential reading skill for early readers, as it aids in their ability to decode words by sounding them out.

In contrast, the other activities focus on different aspects of phonemic awareness or literacy skills. Clapping for each syllable focuses on syllable segmentation, which is a different skill from blending phonemes. Writing word families based on "cat" involves understanding rhyming and spelling patterns rather than blending sounds. Similarly, finding words that start with the same sound emphasizes initial phoneme recognition rather than blending multiple phonemes into a coherent word. Thus, option A directly aligns with the definition of phoneme blending, making it the correct choice for illustrating this specific skill.