The three-cueing approach teaches children to look for cues outside of the letters and sounds in a word and, instead, try to “read” the word by using the pictures on the page, predictable and repeated sentences, and the first letter of a word. This approach also encourages students to skip words they don’t know and to reread a sentence to figure out which word would make sense. This method does not support the development of brain pathways that lead to accurate and automatic word reading (being able to read words correctly (accurate) and quickly without stopping to sound them out (automatic). The pathways for skilled reading are built only by paying attention to the sounds and spelling patterns in words. Practices related to three cueing can harm students later on by leading them to develop bad habits, such as memorizing or guessing words, rather than using sounds to decode unknown words.
The podcast series investigating how flawed reading instruction spread.