A teacher places decodable words in a pocket attached to the back cover and the student removes the words they can decode effortlessly and attempts to blend and decode the remaining words. What is the instructional purpose of this activity?

• A. Teaching sound-letter mapping
• B. Increasing fluency
• C. Encouraging guessing from pictures
• D. Promoting silent reading

Answer: (A)

This activity centers on building the link between sounds and the letters that represent them, and on blending those sounds to read words. By using decodable words and removing the ones the student can already read, the learner is prompted to apply the sound-letter mappings they’ve studied to the remaining words, practicing how to blend phonemes together to form and decode unfamiliar text. This strengthens phonics skills—knowing which letters map to which sounds and how to combine them—so reading decodable text becomes more automatic. It’s not about guessing from pictures or reading silently without decoding; it’s about applying phonics rules to decode words independently and with accuracy.