Balanced Literacy is an approach that combines decoding, fluency, and comprehension strategies. Which statement best describes its goal?

Balanced Literacy is an approach that combines decoding, fluency, and comprehension strategies. Which statement best describes its goal?

• A. To focus exclusively on decoding
• B. To prioritize vocabulary building at the expense of phonics
• C. To integrate phonics, fluency, and comprehension to support reading
• D. To rely solely on teacher read-alouds

Answer: (C)

Balanced Literacy aims to help students become proficient readers by weaving decoding, fluency, and comprehension together. Decoding helps students recognize and read words, but understanding reading isn’t guaranteed by decoding alone. Fluency supports reading smoothly and with expression, which frees up mental effort for meaning-making. Comprehension strategies teach how to monitor understanding, ask questions, infer, summarize, and connect ideas within the text. In practice, this approach blends phonics, guided and shared reading, word study, and independent reading so these elements work in concert. So, the best description is that decoding, fluency, and comprehension are integrated to support reading, rather than focusing on one area or relying on a single method like just read-alouds.

Balanced Literacy aims to help students become proficient readers by weaving decoding, fluency, and comprehension together. Decoding helps students recognize and read words, but understanding reading isn’t guaranteed by decoding alone. Fluency supports reading smoothly and with expression, which frees up mental effort for meaning-making. Comprehension strategies teach how to monitor understanding, ask questions, infer, summarize, and connect ideas within the text. In practice, this approach blends phonics, guided and shared reading, word study, and independent reading so these elements work in concert. So, the best description is that decoding, fluency, and comprehension are integrated to support reading, rather than focusing on one area or relying on a single method like just read-alouds.