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Phonemic awareness refers specifically to an individual's ability to recognize and manipulate the individual sounds, or phonemes, that make up words. This skill is a crucial component of reading development, as it enables learners to break down words into their constituent sounds and to blend those sounds together to form words.

Understanding phonemic awareness is foundational for literacy, as it directly supports the development of spelling, reading, and writing skills. It involves tasks such as identifying the beginning sounds of words, segmenting sounds in words, and blending sounds to form words.

The other options do not accurately describe phonemic awareness. Writing words correctly relates more to spelling and grammatical proficiency rather than sound manipulation. Teaching reading through images pertains to visual literacy strategies, which do not specifically address sound awareness. An early understanding of mathematics is unrelated to the auditory skills involved in phonemic awareness.