First-grade students work in small groups using letter tiles to sound out and build decodable, high-frequency words that the teacher taught in a whole-group lesson. Which area of early literacy is most directly supported?

• A. Invented Spelling
• B. Phoneme Segmenting
• C. Basic Concepts Of Print
• D. Letter-Sound Correspondence

Answer: (D)

This item centers on how students map sounds to letters and use those mappings to read words. When students use letter tiles to sound out and build decodable high-frequency words that were taught in a prior lesson, they’re practicing letter-sound correspondence—the core phonics skill that links individual sounds to their written symbols and shows how to blend them to form a word. The decodable words are designed around specific phonics patterns, so this activity reinforces recognizing which letters represent which sounds and how those sounds come together when reading.

While other literacy skills are involved in a broader sense, this task is most directly about decoding through phonics. Segmenting sounds is related, but the act described emphasizes blending to read. Concepts of print focus on how text is handled and read, not on decoding letter-to-sound mappings. Invented spelling pertains to writing representational attempts rather than decoding practice.