What Is Decoding? A Simple Guide to Phonics and Learning to Read

If you've spent much time around beginning readers, you've probably heard the words phonics and decoding. They come up often when people talk about how children learn to read, but the two terms can sound more complicated than they really are.

At its simplest, decoding is how a child uses what they know about letters and sounds to figure out a written word.

A child sees the word map, connects the letters to their sounds, puts those sounds together, and arrives at map.

That may seem like a very small thing, but learning to do this gives children a way to read words they have never seen before. Instead of needing to memorize every word, they begin to understand how our written language works.

This is one of the reasons phonics and decoding are such an important part of beginning reading instruction.

What is phonics?

Phonics is the relationship between the letters and letter combinations we see in print and the sounds they represent in spoken language.

For example, a child may learn that:

m represents /m/
s represents /s/
t represents /t/

Later, they learn that letters can work together in patterns such as sh, ch, ee, or ai.

Phonics instruction teaches these relationships so children can use them when reading and spelling words.

Good phonics instruction is generally systematic, meaning that skills are introduced in an intentional sequence rather than being taught randomly. It is also explicit, meaning children are directly shown the relationships they are expected to learn rather than being left to figure them out on their own.

The National Reading Panel found that systematic phonics instruction has significant benefits for children learning to read, including improvements in decoding and word recognition. It also emphasized that phonics is one part of a complete reading program and needs to be combined with phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

That last part is worth remembering. Phonics is important, but learning to read is much bigger than phonics alone.

So what exactly is decoding?

Decoding is what happens when a child uses their knowledge of letters and sounds to read a word.

Imagine a beginning reader sees:

sat

They may know that s represents /s/, a represents /a/, and t represents /t/. They can say those sounds and blend them together to read sat.

That is decoding.

As children learn more phonics patterns, they can use the same process with increasingly complicated words.

Early on, they may read simple words such as:

cat
sit
mop
sun

Later, they may work with:

ship
black
train
hope

Eventually, decoding becomes much more automatic. A child who has practiced a particular word pattern many times may recognize words without consciously thinking through every individual sound.

This progression from deliberate decoding toward more automatic word recognition is an important part of becoming a fluent reader.

Decoding isn't the same thing as guessing

This is one of the most important distinctions for parents and teachers to understand.

Beginning readers sometimes encounter books that encourage them to look at a picture, think about what would make sense, or use the first letter to guess a word.

For example, a child might see a picture of a horse and a sentence that begins with:

The h...

They may guess horse because the picture tells them what the word probably is.

They may get the word right, but they haven't necessarily read the word by using the letters on the page.

When a child is learning to decode, the goal is for the printed word itself to provide the information needed to read it.

That doesn't mean pictures are bad for beginning readers. Pictures are wonderful for building vocabulary, understanding a story, making predictions, and enjoying books together. They simply don't need to be the strategy a child relies on to identify an unfamiliar word.

A useful question when a child gets stuck is:

"What do the letters say?"

rather than immediately telling them what the picture suggests.

What is blending?

Blending is one of the skills children use during decoding.

A child may learn the individual sounds in a word and then blend those sounds together to say the whole word.

For example:

/m/ /a/ /p/

becomes:

map

At first, a child may say each sound slowly and separately. With practice, the sounds begin to come together more smoothly.

This is why you'll often hear teachers talk about sounding out words.

It isn't simply memorizing the sounds of individual letters. The child is learning to connect those sounds together and use them to identify a word.

Blending can take some practice, particularly when children are first learning to read. It is completely normal for a beginning reader to read a word slowly before they eventually become more automatic.

What comes before decoding?

Before children can decode printed words, they need to develop an understanding of spoken sounds.

This includes being able to notice things like rhyming words, beginning sounds, and eventually the individual sounds within words.

For example, a child might hear that sun and sock begin with the same sound.

Later, they may be able to hear that the word cat contains three separate sounds:

/c/ /a/ /t/

This ability to notice and work with individual sounds in spoken language is called phonemic awareness.

Phonemic awareness and phonics are closely related, but they aren't the same thing. Phonemic awareness happens with spoken language. Phonics connects those sounds to letters in print.

Once children begin connecting the sounds they can hear with the letters they see, they can start using that knowledge to decode written words.

Why do children need to practice decoding?

Knowing a phonics pattern in isolation is different from being able to use it while reading.

A child might successfully tell you that m says /m/ and a says /a/, but that doesn't necessarily mean they can immediately read mat.

They need opportunities to put those pieces together.

This is where practice becomes important.

Children benefit from seeing familiar letter-sound patterns repeatedly and using them to read actual words. Over time, words that once required careful sounding out become easier and more automatic.

This is also why beginning readers need opportunities to read, rather than spending all of their reading instruction listening to an adult read.

Children need to experience the process themselves.

Where do decodable books fit in?

Decodable books are designed to give beginning readers practice applying the phonics skills they have been learning.

A well-designed decodable book uses a controlled set of spelling patterns so that a child who has learned those patterns can actually use them to read the words in the story.

For a child who has learned short-vowel CVC words, an early decodable story might contain words such as:

Sam
sat
mat
ham
has

As the child's phonics knowledge grows, the books can introduce more complex patterns.

The important part is that the text should match what the child has been taught closely enough that they can do the work of reading it.

This gives children something that can be difficult to get from books that are written for fluent readers: repeated opportunities to practice decoding in connected text.

Reading Rockets describes decodable books as texts that allow beginning readers to apply the letter-sound relationships they have learned and develop greater automaticity through practice.

Does that mean children should only read decodable books?

No.

This is an important distinction.

Decodable books have a particular job. They give beginning readers a chance to practice the phonics skills they are learning.

They don't replace being read to.

A child should still hear wonderful picture books, listen to stories with rich vocabulary, look at books that are far beyond their independent reading level, and enjoy books simply because they are interesting.

An adult can read a beautiful story aloud even when the child couldn't possibly decode all of the words independently.

There is no reason a child needs to choose between a wonderful read-aloud and a simple decodable book. They serve different purposes.

One gives a child access to language and stories that are beyond their current reading ability. The other gives them a chance to practice the mechanics of reading for themselves.

Both are valuable.

What about sight words?

This is another area that can be confusing.

Some words are very common in children's books and don't follow the most straightforward phonics patterns. Children eventually need to become familiar with these words.

But "sight word" doesn't necessarily mean a word that should be memorized as a picture.

Many high-frequency words are completely or mostly decodable once a child has learned the appropriate phonics patterns. Other words contain an irregular part that can be explicitly taught.

The important distinction is that children can learn to recognize words quickly while still understanding how letters and sounds work.

As their reading experience grows, more and more words become familiar enough that they no longer need to consciously sound them out.

What should parents look for in a beginning reading book?

If you're choosing books for a child who is just learning to read, it can help to ask a few simple questions.

Does the book match the phonics skills my child has actually learned?

If your child has only learned short-vowel CVC words, a book full of advanced vowel patterns is probably going to be frustrating.

Can my child read most of the words without guessing?

The goal is to give children an opportunity to use their developing decoding skills.

Are the same patterns repeated enough to get useful practice?

Children generally need repeated exposure before new patterns become automatic.

Does the story still make sense?

Decodable doesn't have to mean meaningless. Children should still be able to understand what is happening and enjoy the story.

Does the book gradually become more challenging?

A good sequence should allow children to build on what they already know rather than constantly introducing a completely new set of skills.

Reading Rockets recommends choosing decodable texts that align with the phonics sequence children are being taught and provide repeated opportunities to practice the target letter-sound patterns.

What can parents do at home?

You don't need to recreate a classroom at your kitchen table.

If your child is learning letter sounds, spend a few minutes practicing them regularly. When they have enough sounds to begin blending, give them simple words they can work out.

When they're ready for books, choose some that match the phonics patterns they know and give them time to work through the words themselves.

Try not to jump in immediately when they hesitate. Give them a chance to look at the letters, say the sounds, and blend them together.

If they make a mistake, you can guide them back to the word rather than simply supplying the answer.

And keep reading aloud to them.

A child can spend five minutes practicing decoding and then spend twenty minutes listening to you read a favorite picture book. Those activities aren't competing with each other. They are building different parts of the reading foundation.

What does successful decoding eventually look like?

At first, reading a simple word can take a surprising amount of effort.

A child may look at s-a-t, say each sound, pause, and then finally say sat.

With enough practice, that process becomes faster.

Eventually, the child sees sat and recognizes it almost immediately. They can use the same knowledge with other words and patterns they have learned, including words they haven't memorized before.

That is one of the real advantages of learning to decode. A child is not limited to the words someone has explicitly taught them. They are developing a system that allows them to approach new words.

The goal isn't for children to sound out every word forever. The goal is to give them the knowledge and strategies they need to become accurate, increasingly fluent readers.

Phonics is one piece of learning to read

It is easy to get caught up in debates about the "right" way to teach reading, but the bigger picture is more useful.

Children need to understand spoken language and the sounds within words. They need to learn how those sounds are represented in print. They need opportunities to practice decoding and build fluency. They need vocabulary, background knowledge, comprehension, and plenty of opportunities to hear and enjoy good books.

Systematic phonics is an important part of that picture, not the entire picture.

The National Reading Panel found that systematic phonics instruction improves children's ability to read words and that it is most effective when integrated with other important components of reading instruction, including phonemic awareness, fluency, and comprehension.

For a beginning reader, though, there is something especially powerful about reaching the point where the letters on the page start to make sense.