Even though much of America's education landscape is so depressing right now, there is hope that better times could be ahead. Today, states - both red and blue - are pass laws that emphasize the teaching of reading using proven evidence-based methods such as phonics instruction.
These poor reading scores are the result of too many schools using ineffective instructional approaches such as balanced literacy that rely on the so-called 'three-cueing method.'
A 2023 National Council on Teacher Quality study says that under the three-cueing reading instructional approach, 'children who encounter a word they do not recognize are instructed to use one of three strategies: guess what the word might be based on context; look at the picture to help guess what the word might be; and look at the first letter to help guess what the word might be, and if the guess makes sense, then check to see if it looks right.'
Yet, as the NCTQ study points out, 'Despite widespread use by K-2 and elementary special education teachers, reading experts discourage guessing techniques because they represent lost opportunities to help children practice decoding [i.e., pronouncing], and represent an ineffective strategy for reading advanced texts.'
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