Sound-symbol instruction is best described as focusing on:

• A. It relates to reading silently without phonics.
• B. It is a tool for measuring handwriting speed.
• C. Sound-symbol instruction focuses on linking sounds to symbols for decoding.
• D. It is a vocabulary-building game.

Answer: (C)

Sound-symbol instruction teaches students to connect spoken sounds with written symbols so they can decode words. This means learning how letters or letter patterns represent sounds and how to blend those sounds together to read. When a student sees a word like sit, they map the letters to the sounds /s/ /ɪ/ /t/ and blend them to pronounce the word. This direct mapping of sounds to symbols is what makes decoding possible, laying the foundation for fluent reading and comprehension.

Other activities described—reading silently without using phonics, measuring handwriting speed, or playing a vocabulary-building game—don’t center on this process of linking sounds to symbols for decoding.