What is a phoneme?

Is one of the units of sound that distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in speech. When we teach reading we teach
children which letters represent those sounds.
What is the difference between the phonemes /b/ and /p/?
The main difference between /b/ and /p/ is that /b/ is a voiced sound, whereas /p/ is just
produced by the puff of air. Also, /b/ is pronounced with less air released than /p/, and this
can sometimes be a more useful distinction as it is difficult to feel the vocal cords vibrating
when making the /b/ sound.