RICA Practice Test 2025 – Comprehensive All-in-One Guide to Master Reading Instruction Competence

A digraph is defined as a pair of letters that work together to represent a single phoneme, or sound, in a word. This means that, rather than the individual sounds of each letter being pronounced separately, they combine to create one distinct sound. An example of a digraph is "ch" in "chair" which represents a single sound that is different from the sounds represented by the individual letters 'c' and 'h'.

The other options do not accurately describe a digraph:

- The first choice implies that two letters produce two different sounds, which aligns more with letter combinations that do not form a single phoneme.

- The second choice focuses specifically on vowel sounds, while digraphs can also include consonants, such as "sh" in "ship."

- The last option suggests that the two letters in the combination are pronounced separately, which contradicts the very definition of a digraph.

Understanding that a digraph is about the combination of letters resulting in one sound is crucial for recognizing how certain phonetic representations work in reading and phonics instruction.