Which approach teaches students to match sounds to letters and blend sounds to read unknown words?

Which approach teaches students to match sounds to letters and blend sounds to read unknown words?

• A. Phonics
• B. Phonemic Awareness
• C. Tokens
• D. Segmentation

Answer: (A)

Phonics teaches students to match sounds to letters and blend those sounds to read unknown words. By learning how letters represent sounds and how to combine those sounds into spoken words, learners can decode new words they encounter. Phonemic awareness, while essential, focuses on hearing and manipulating sounds in spoken language without letters, so it doesn’t address linking sounds to written symbols. Segmentation is a skill within phonemic awareness that involves breaking words into individual sounds, which supports decoding but isn’t the full process of mapping sounds to letters and blending to read. Tokens is not a decoding approach.

Phonics teaches students to match sounds to letters and blend those sounds to read unknown words. By learning how letters represent sounds and how to combine those sounds into spoken words, learners can decode new words they encounter. Phonemic awareness, while essential, focuses on hearing and manipulating sounds in spoken language without letters, so it doesn’t address linking sounds to written symbols. Segmentation is a skill within phonemic awareness that involves breaking words into individual sounds, which supports decoding but isn’t the full process of mapping sounds to letters and blending to read. Tokens is not a decoding approach.