A reading sub-skill involving the ability to translate letters into sounds to derive the pronunciation of a printed word. Together with vocabulary level and spelling, decoding ability has a high correlation with reading comprehension. Research in the US has shown that first-grade decoding ability predicts 80 to 90 percent of reading comprehension in 2nd and 3rd grade, and that it goes on to account for nearly 40 percent of reading comprehension by the 9th grade. Poor decoding skills in children is one of the main reasons for reading deficiencies as too much time and energy in decoding detracts from understanding the meaning of a passage. Such children also rely on context-based decoding strategies, which research has shown to be too slow in improving reading fluency.
See Grapheme, Grapheme-phoneme correspondences, Orthographic reading skills, Phoneme, Phonological reading skills, Reading comprehension