Scarborough's Reading Rope connects which two core components?

• A. Word recognition and understanding language
• B. Decoding and writing
• C. Fluency and vocabulary
• D. Phonemic awareness and decoding

Answer: (A)

Scarborough’s Reading Rope highlights two broad, interwoven strands that together produce skilled reading: word recognition and language comprehension (understanding language). Word recognition is the ability to identify words quickly and accurately in print, which includes decoding unfamiliar words and recognizing common sight words. Language comprehension is understanding the meaning of language—vocabulary, syntax and structure, background knowledge, and other oral language skills that help make sense of what is read. When a reader can both recognize words smoothly and understand the language, they can comprehend text effectively. The other options mix related skills that don’t capture these two main strands: decoding and writing pairs two activities, but writing isn’t one of the two core reading strands; fluency and vocabulary are important but fluency bridges the two strands and vocabulary is part of language comprehension rather than a separate core strand; phonemic awareness and decoding are components within word recognition rather than the two overarching categories.