Multisensory instruction in literacy engages which modalities?

• A. Sight, sound, and touch
• B. Only sight
• C. Only sound
• D. Only touch

Answer: (A)

Multisensory instruction in literacy uses more than one sense at the same time to strengthen learning. Specifically, it engages sight (seeing letters and print), sound (hearing and saying phonemes and words), and touch or movement (forming letters, tracing, or manipulating letters). When a teacher combines these, a student might see a letter, hear its sound, and trace or write the letter as they pronounce the sound. This multiple-sense approach helps students connect letters to sounds more firmly, supports decoding and encoding, and is especially beneficial for emergent readers and learners who benefit from kinesthetic or visual supports.

Options that involve only one sense—sight alone, sound alone, or touch alone—don’t constitute multisensory instruction, which is why the best answer includes all three modalities listed.