The correct answer is "decode and spell unknown words".
The alphabetic principle consists of 2 elements:
- Alphabetic understanding, which states that words are composed of letters and each represents a particular sound.
- Phonological recording, or the relationship between letters and phonemes (letter-sound correspondences).
Whenever an individual sees an unknown word, it will recur to initially detect the letters contained in the word and subsequently relate them to a previously known sound.