Final answer:
The ability to combine the sounds that each letter represents in a word is known as phonetic decoding or phonics, a key reading skill. It involves recognizing sound-letter correspondences and applying them to read words.
Step-by-step explanation:
The ability to string together the sounds that each letter stands for in a word is known as phonetic decoding or phonics. This is a foundational skill in reading and involves recognizing the sounds associated with each letter or group of letters, as in the examples provided. Understanding phonics allows students to decode unfamiliar words by sounding them out.
For instance, in the word 'else', there are four letters but only three sounds are heard:
- The first sound is spelled by the letter <e> at the front of the word.
- The second sound is spelled by the letter <l>.
- The third sound is spelled by the letter <s>.
Note that the letter <e> at the end of the word does not spell any sound. This is an example of how phonetic decoding works in practice with some letters contributing to the pronunciation of a word, while others are silent.
Another example would be the word 'behind', where the sound [b] is spelled with the letter <b>, and in the word 'wonderful', the [d] sound is spelled with the letter <d>.