Which literacy concept describes breaking words into their component letters and then combining them to form the whole word?

• A. Part to Whole
• B. Whole to Part
• C. Phonics
• D. Morphology

Answer: (A)

Part to Whole describes breaking a word into its individual parts and then recombining those parts to form the whole word. This mirrors segmenting and blending, a foundational decoding skill where students separate letters or sounds and then blend them back together to read or spell the word. The other ideas don’t fit as precisely: Whole to Part would be starting with the whole word and then looking at its parts; phonics is the broader system of letter–sound relationships used for decoding and spelling, not specifically the act of breaking into parts and rebuilding; morphology focuses on meaningful units like roots and affixes rather than the basic parts of the word.