Which term refers to a reader's sensitivity to the sound constituents of a word?

Phonemic awareness is the term that pertains to a reader's sensitivity to the sound constituents of a word. This skill involves the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds, or phonemes, in spoken words. For example, recognizing that the word "cat" is made up of three distinct sounds (c/a/t) is a demonstration of phonemic awareness.

This foundational skill is crucial for developing reading proficiency, as it enables learners to understand how sounds correlate with letters in writing. It precedes and supports phonics instruction, which is the understanding of the relationship between letters and sounds. Phonemic awareness is often emphasized in early literacy education to assist children in decoding words as they begin reading.

The other options relate to aspects of literacy and language understanding but do not focus specifically on the auditory discrimination of sounds in words. Graphophonics pertains to the relation between graphology (written symbols) and phonology (sounds), syllabic understanding involves recognizing syllable patterns, and lexical knowledge refers to an understanding of the vocabulary and meaning of words, which is not solely about sound.