In the fall of 2019, the EdWeek Research Center surveyed teachers of beginning readers. One question was simple. What should a child do first at a word they don’t know? More than a quarter of the teachers said: look at the picture. Does your child glance up from the page and guess? That habit has a history. To us, it does not look like a flaw in your child. It looks like something they learned.
Common questions from parents
What is three-cueing?
Do skilled readers guess words from context?
What should I ask my child’s school?
Will covering the picture make my child a better reader?
Is guessing at words a sign of dyslexia?
In a 2019 survey, 3 in 4 early-reading teachers said they teach kids to guess at words. One question to ask your school, and one thing to try tonight.
What did 3 in 4 teachers say they teach?
The survey went out nationally in the fall of 2019. It asked 674 teachers of beginning readers, special-education teachers included. The results came out in January 2020. Three in four said they teach a method called three-cueing.
Three-cueing teaches a child to work out a word from clues. The picture is one clue. What would make sense in the sentence is another. So a child who meets a hard word looks around it for help.
Keep two limits in mind. This is what teachers said they do. The survey did not watch any lessons. And it was 2019, before many states passed new reading laws.
Still, the method did not come from nowhere. Literacy researcher Timothy Shanahan wrote about it in 2017. He said it “is still taught to many teachers and prospective teachers.” To us, that makes this a training problem, not a teacher problem. This infographic traces the long history behind it.
A child taught to guess learns to look like a reader, not to read.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
Is guessing how good readers read?
No. Keith Rayner and colleagues reviewed the science of skilled reading in 2016. Skilled readers look at most words in turn. They skip mainly short or predictable ones. Even a skipped word is not missed. The reader has partly recognized it first.
Context still helps. A word that fits the sentence gets read faster. But skilled readers do not use context in place of looking. They look at the word. Shanahan calls three-cueing a picture of how struggling readers read, not strong ones.
Here is what guessing tends to look like at home:
- Your child says a word that fits the picture, not the letters. Think “pony” for “horse.”
- They read well on pages with pictures and stall on pages with none.
- They look up at the picture before they look at the word.
So why do children guess? Our view: a child guesses when sounding out is still slow and hard. On an easy page, a helpful picture carries them through. So the guess hides how hard the reading is. When the pictures go away, there is nothing left to guess from. A child taught to guess learns to look like a reader, not to read.
Want more? This plain guide to three-cueing covers where the term came from. It also covers why researchers argue about it.
Key takeaways
- Teachers said they teach it: In a 2019 survey, 3 in 4 early-reading teachers said so.
- Skilled readers look at the words: Rayner's 2016 review: they look at most words, skipping mainly short or predictable ones.
- One question, one move: Ask what your child does at a hard word. Then cover the picture.
What do I ask the school, and what do I try tonight?
Ask one question. “What is my child told to do at a word they don’t know?” Listen for the first step. Does it start with “look at the picture”? Or “think what would make sense”? That is three-cueing. The answer you hope for starts with the letters. Ask it kindly. You are asking about a method, not blaming a person. Some states have changed their reading rules since 2019. So ask what your child’s class does now.
Try one move tonight: cover the picture. Before your child reads a page, cover the picture. A hand or a sticky note works. Let them read the words. If they guess, point back to the word. Say, “Look at the letters.” Keep your voice calm. Then lift the cover and enjoy the picture together. The picture still matters. It comes second.
No study we hold tests whether this helps a child read better later. What it does is plain. A picture your child cannot see is a picture they cannot guess from. And you get to see how the words go without it. If a word stops them, you have found where the work is. This step-by-step guide shows how to teach sounding out. When you pick books, watch for pictures that give the word away. Nobody will stand up for your child as hard as you will.
A picture your child cannot see is a picture they cannot guess from.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
You want your child reading the words, not guessing at them. For years, the system taught the guess, then waited to see who fell behind. Waiting has never taught a child to read. Teaching does. Does reading still look hard once the guess is gone? Our free screener asks what you see at home, and it does not diagnose: try the free dyslexia screener.
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