Final answer:
The correct answer to the student's question is 'orthographic consistency', an aspect crucial for facilitating word recognition in beginning readers. It involves predictable patterns of letter combinations and spellings within words.
Step-by-step explanation:
The student's question refers to the elements that facilitate word recognition and understanding in reading. When teaching beginning readers, instructors often focus on various aspects of language, including orthographic consistency, which refers to the predictable patterns of letter combinations and spellings that make up words. Understanding the consistent ways in which letters are used to represent sounds is key for word recognition.
Semantic relationships are crucial for grasping the meanings of words and phrases within a text. Semantics involves the meanings of words and the ways in which we derive meaning from language. Teaching the meanings of words is pivotal for readers to comprehend and internalize language use, as demonstrated by Bousfield's experiment on semantic encoding.
However, the element that specifically aids in word recognition among the provided options is orthographic consistency. This aspect can help beginning readers quickly identify and read words because they learn to anticipate the common patterns of how words are spelled. Therefore, some words have orthographic consistency, which facilitates word recognition, and it is important to teach word meanings to beginning readers.
The correct option that fills in the blanks from the given question is b. Orthographic consistency.