A student uses letter-sound relationships to figure out a word they have not seen before; this is called

A student uses letter-sound relationships to figure out a word they have not seen before; this is called

• A. Memorization
• B. Vocabulary
• C. Decoding
• D. Semantic Knowledge

Answer: (C)

Decoding is when you translate letters into sounds to read a word you haven’t seen before. By using letter-sound relationships, you map graphemes to phonemes and blend them to pronounce the word. This is different from memorization, where a reader recognizes a word from memory without sounding it out, and from vocabulary or semantic knowledge, which are about the word’s meaning rather than how to pronounce it. So using letter-sound relationships to figure out an unfamiliar word is decoding.

Decoding is when you translate letters into sounds to read a word you haven’t seen before. By using letter-sound relationships, you map graphemes to phonemes and blend them to pronounce the word. This is different from memorization, where a reader recognizes a word from memory without sounding it out, and from vocabulary or semantic knowledge, which are about the word’s meaning rather than how to pronounce it. So using letter-sound relationships to figure out an unfamiliar word is decoding.