Decoding is a foundational literacy skill where readers break down and sound out unfamiliar words to understand them. Mounting evidence, including a 2024 replication study by Reading Reimagined and ETS that confirmed a decoding threshold, suggests decoding may explain why so many older students continue to read below national standards. “If you teach kids to break words into their smallest meaningful pieces, like ‘un-’ for ‘not’ or ‘-ness’ for a state of being, they’re more likely to be able to handle ‘unhappiness’ by spotting its