Semantic cues involve which of the following strategies?

• A. Use prior knowledge and activate background knowledge
• B. Rely on picture cues to identify words
• C. Focus on letter-sound correspondences
• D. Memorize sight words

Answer: (A)

Semantic cues are about using meaning to figure out words as you read. When you come to a sentence, you draw on what you already know about the topic and your background knowledge to decide what word would make sense. That prediction and how well it fits the sentence help you identify the word even if you’re not sure about its letters or sounds. So using prior knowledge and activating background knowledge is the clearest example of semantic cueing, because it relies on meaning and context to guide word identification. Picture cues use visuals to guess words, which can help comprehension but doesn’t capture semantic cueing as directly. Focusing on letter-sound relationships is about sounds and letters (graphophonic), and memorizing sight words is a word-recognition strategy not driven by meaning.