What are decoding skills?

Decoding skills are the skills necessary to analyze and interpret correctly the spoken or graphic symbols of a familiar language.

To learn to read, one must learn the conventional code in which something is written in order to decode the written message.

In reading practice, the term decode is used primarily to refer to word identification rather than to identification of higher units of meaning.

• Concept module: decoding skills
• In overview module: Glossary (Literacy): D
• In modular book: Glossary of literacy terms
• In document collection: Reference materials
• In bookshelf: Literacy

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 29 July 1997

© 1999 SIL International