Decoding is an essential skill that emerging readers need to develop in order to understand and comprehend written texts. It involves the ability to recognize and manipulate individual sounds in words, which helps in word identification and reading fluency. Here are 15 effective decoding strategies and activities that can support and enhance the decoding skills of emerging readers:

1. Phonics Instruction: Teach letter-sound correspondences systematically to help children decode words accurately.

2. Sight Words: Teach common sight words that cannot be easily decoded, as they occur frequently in texts.

3. Word Families: Introduce word families (e.g., -at, -op, -un) to help emerging readers recognize patterns and decode similar words.

4. Contextual Clues: Encourage students to use the context of the sentence or passage to help decode unknown words.

5. Chunking: Teach students to break longer words into smaller chunks or syllables to aid in decoding.

6. Visual Cues: Teach students to pay attention to visual cues such as letter shape, size, and position to decode words.

7. Word Analysis: Teach students how to analyze words by identifying affixes, roots, and base words.

8. Sound Blending: Practice blending individual sounds together to decode words.

9. Word Games: Engage students in word games and activities that require decoding skills, such as word puzzles and word bingo.

10. Decodable Books: Provide decodable books that contain words with the letter-sound correspondences the students are learning.

11. Word Sorts: Ask students to classify words based on their phonetic patterns, helping them recognize and decode similar words.

12. Word Walls: Display high-frequency words and words with different phonetic patterns on a word wall for reference.

13. Repeated Reading: Encourage repeated reading of texts to improve fluency and reinforce decoding skills.

14. Guided Reading: Provide guided reading sessions where students can practice decoding skills in a supportive environment.

15. Reading Aloud: Read aloud to students regularly to expose them to fluent reading and model effective decoding strategies.

By incorporating these strategies and activities into your teaching, you can help emerging readers develop strong decoding skills, which will ultimately contribute to their overall reading success. Remember to provide ample opportunities for practice and reinforcement, and tailor your instruction to meet the individual needs of your students.