Final answer:
Students should clearly understand whether to sort words by their sounds for phonemic awareness or by spelling for graphemic patterns, with the correct answer being phonemic awareness and graphemic patterns.
Step-by-step explanation:
It is important to be clear whether students should sort words by sound as in phonemic awareness, or spelling as in graphemic patterns. The correct answer is c. Phonemic awareness, graphemic patterns. Sorting words by phonemic awareness involves recognizing the distinct sounds in words (phonemes), while graphemic patterns involve recognizing letters and patterns of letters that represent these sounds in writing (graphemes).
For example, when you 'listen carefully to the sound the u is spelling or helping to spell in each of these words', you are focusing on the phonemic aspect if you're paying attention to the actual sound being produced and the graphemic aspect if you're looking at how the sound is represented in written form.