What term describes the cues based on the shape or visual features of words that help recognize them?

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Multiple Choice

What term describes the cues based on the shape or visual features of words that help recognize them?

Cueing based on how a word looks—its shape and visual features—helps readers recognize it quickly. These are configuration clues. By noticing the overall word pattern, distinctive letter shapes, common endings, and familiar letter clusters, a reader can spot a word at a glance even if they’re not sounding it out letter by letter. This complements other types of cues, like meaning (semantic cues) or the phonetic cues that come from letter-sound relationships. The other options don’t describe recognition from visual form: semantic maps relate to meaning, Stanines are a testing score, and nasal consonants are a phonetic feature. So the term for cues based on the word’s appearance is configuration clues.

Cueing based on how a word looks—its shape and visual features—helps readers recognize it quickly. These are configuration clues. By noticing the overall word pattern, distinctive letter shapes, common endings, and familiar letter clusters, a reader can spot a word at a glance even if they’re not sounding it out letter by letter. This complements other types of cues, like meaning (semantic cues) or the phonetic cues that come from letter-sound relationships. The other options don’t describe recognition from visual form: semantic maps relate to meaning, Stanines are a testing score, and nasal consonants are a phonetic feature. So the term for cues based on the word’s appearance is configuration clues.

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