What does encoding refer to in literacy instruction?

What does encoding refer to in literacy instruction?

• A. Reading words aloud fluently
• B. Understanding how sounds relate to letters
• C. Writing words
• D. Identifying sounds in spoken words

Answer: (C)

Encoding is the process of turning sounds into written language. It’s when you hear a word and write it by choosing the correct letters to represent its sounds, like mapping the /k/ /æ/ /t/ into c-a-t to spell cat. This is the act of spelling or writing words, the reverse of decoding, which is reading words aloud by turning written letters back into sounds. In teaching, encoding is built by teaching how sounds map to letters (phoneme–grapheme correspondences), spelling patterns, and how to apply orthographic conventions. The other ideas describe reading aloud, understanding sound-letter relationships, or identifying sounds in speech, which are related skills but not the act of producing written words.

Encoding is the process of turning sounds into written language. It’s when you hear a word and write it by choosing the correct letters to represent its sounds, like mapping the /k/ /æ/ /t/ into c-a-t to spell cat. This is the act of spelling or writing words, the reverse of decoding, which is reading words aloud by turning written letters back into sounds. In teaching, encoding is built by teaching how sounds map to letters (phoneme–grapheme correspondences), spelling patterns, and how to apply orthographic conventions. The other ideas describe reading aloud, understanding sound-letter relationships, or identifying sounds in speech, which are related skills but not the act of producing written words.