Which activity is crucial for developing young children's decoding skills?

Practicing phonics activities that focus on sound-letter relationships is crucial for developing young children's decoding skills because it helps them understand how letters and sounds correspond to one another. Decoding is the ability to break down words into their individual phonetic components, which is essential for reading. By engaging in phonics activities, children learn to recognize the sounds that each letter or letter combination makes, enabling them to sound out unfamiliar words independently.

This foundational skill is integral to reading fluency and comprehension, as it empowers children to approach new texts with the tools necessary to decode language effectively. Through the understanding of sound-letter relationships, children enhance their ability to read and write, laying a strong foundation for further literacy development.