The word elephant is?

• A. Decodable
• B. Non-decodable
• C. Nonword
• D. Irregular

Answer: (A)

Decodability is whether a word can be sounded out using familiar letter-to-sound rules. The word elephant is decodable because its spelling follows common phonics patterns: the ph digraph represents /f/ and the ending /nt/ is a regular consonant cluster. While English has many irregular spellings, elephant can be pronounced by applying standard decoding rules, since it’s a real word with conventional letter-sound mappings. It isn’t a nonword, and it doesn’t rely on unusual spelling, so decodable is the best description.