Decoding skills are the tools needed to make sense of the spoken or written word. These skills are necessary in order to read, write and speak. The word decoding commonly refers to understanding on the word level and not comprehension of higher meaning.
One important component of Decoding is phonological awareness, which is the understanding of the sound structure, and how words are composed of various sounds
Phonological awareness includes the ability to segment sounds, rhyme, and identify syllables. Another component of Decoding is alphabetic knowledge, or The Alphabetic Principle, which is the understanding that letters are used to represent speech sounds. The third component of Decoding is Orthographic knowledge which is the understanding of the writing system in order to represent language this can include spelling, punctuation and capitalization.