Substituting a word with the same meaning but different form during reading is which type of error?

• A. Graphophonic
• B. Syntactic
• C. Semantics
• D. Pragmatic

Answer: (C)

Substituting a word with the same meaning but a different form focuses on meaning and vocabulary choice during reading. When you swap in a synonym or a different morphological form, the sense of the sentence stays intact, but you haven’t read the exact word on the page. That’s a semantic error—it's about meaning, not about how the words sound or how the sentence is structured. Graphophonic errors deal with letter-sound relationships, so you’d misread words because of decoding; syntactic errors involve grammar or word order; pragmatic errors relate to using language appropriately in context. So this kind of substitution is categorized as semantic because it centers on meaning and vocabulary rather than sound or structure. For example, reading "glad" as "happy" preserves meaning but changes the exact word.