Which term describes knowledge of the rules of language decoding and is also referred to as orthographic tendencies?

• A. Phonemic awareness
• B. Code knowledge
• C. Morphology
• D. Syntactic knowledge

Answer: (B)

The main idea here is understanding how the writing system works—the rules for decoding words and the patterns writers tend to use in spelling. This kind of knowledge, often called code knowledge, covers knowing how letters and sounds fit together and recognizing common orthographic patterns that help a reader predict word spellings and pronunciations. Phonemic awareness is about hearing and manipulating individual sounds in spoken language, which supports decoding but isn’t the rule-based knowledge of how the writing system operates. Morphology deals with word parts like prefixes and suffixes, which relates to meaning and word formation rather than decoding rules. Syntactic knowledge is about how sentences are built and how words relate to each other in structure, not about decoding letters into sounds. So code knowledge best captures both decoding rules and orthographic tendencies.