What process requires students to be aware of the vowel sound in a word and the sounds following it?

The process that requires students to be aware of the vowel sound in a word and the sounds following it is segmentation. Segmentation involves breaking a word down into its individual sounds or phonemes, which helps students develop phonemic awareness—an essential skill for reading and writing. When students segment a word, they identify the vowel sound and the sounds that come before and after it, enabling them to understand how the components of a word come together to form its pronunciation and meaning.

Rhyme and alliteration primarily focus on sound patterns and relationships between words, rather than the individual sounds within a single word. Although they help with phonological awareness, they do not require the same level of analysis of vowel sounds and subsequent consonants as segmentation does.