The act of decoding uses which skills?

The act of decoding uses which skills?

• A. Phonics and phonological awareness to sound out words.
• B. Memorizing whole words by sight.
• C. Summarizing passages.
• D. Analyzing characters in a story.

Answer: (A)

Decoding is turning written letters into spoken sounds by using knowledge of letter–sound relationships and the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in language. Phonics gives you the rules for how letters make sounds, and phonological awareness helps you hear and blend those sounds together to pronounce words. That combination lets you read unfamiliar words by sounding them out. This best choice fits because it directly describes the skills you use to read words that you haven’t memorized yet. By contrast, memorizing whole words by sight relies on recognizing words without sounding them out, while summarizing passages or analyzing characters are about understanding what you read, not decoding the words themselves.

Decoding is turning written letters into spoken sounds by using knowledge of letter–sound relationships and the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in language. Phonics gives you the rules for how letters make sounds, and phonological awareness helps you hear and blend those sounds together to pronounce words. That combination lets you read unfamiliar words by sounding them out.

This best choice fits because it directly describes the skills you use to read words that you haven’t memorized yet. By contrast, memorizing whole words by sight relies on recognizing words without sounding them out, while summarizing passages or analyzing characters are about understanding what you read, not decoding the words themselves.