What best describes the relationship between decoding and comprehension?

• A. Decoding supports accurate word reading, freeing cognitive resources for understanding meaning and comprehension.
• B. Decoding and comprehension are independent processes.
• C. Comprehension is necessary before decoding.
• D. Decoding hinders comprehension.

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is how decoding and comprehension relate to each other. When a reader can quickly and accurately recognize and pronounce words, they don’t have to devote most of their mental effort to figuring out what the words say. That frees cognitive resources for understanding the meaning, making connections, and drawing inferences from the text.

That’s why the best description is that decoding supports accurate word reading, freeing cognitive resources for understanding meaning and comprehension. If decoding is smooth, readers can focus on the ideas, relationships, and deeper messages in the text rather than getting bogged down in sounding out every word.

Decoding and comprehension aren’t independent. If decoding is poor, comprehension suffers because the reader spends so much effort on word recognition that little attention remains for understanding. The idea that comprehension must come first isn’t accurate because you need to access the words to build meaning. And decoding doesn’t hinder comprehension; fluent decoding typically enhances it by allowing meaning to come through more easily.