What are the roles of phonemes and graphemes in decoding?
Decoding involves children learning the sound of letters with their written letters. The sounds of letters are phonemes and the written symbols of letters are graphemes. When they associate the sounds (phonemes) of the language with the printed symbols (graphemes), they are decoding. When children say the word bird, for example, they are giving the sound of some of the letters of the alphabet. When they can make the link between saying bird and seeing bird in print, they are decoding.
