Following the passage of a 2023 law, Florida bans the use of the “three-cueing” method of reading instruction in schools. Florida Statute 1008.25 now states: “The primary instructional strategy for teaching word reading is phonics instruction for decoding and encoding. Instructional strategies may not employ the three-cueing system model of reading or visual memory as a basis for teaching word reading. Such instruction may include visual information and strategies which improve background and experiential knowledge, add context, and increase oral language and vocabulary to support comprehension, but may not be used to teach word reading.”
What does this mean for teachers and school leaders? Three-cueing refers to a decades-old model of how people read which emphasizes the use of context, or various cues, to infer meaning from a text.
While it’s true that adult readers use context to make meaning out of texts—think of how high schoolers can infer the meaning of unknown words on the SATs or ACT, for example—that is not how children learn to read. Research has consistently shown that phonics instruction, which deliberately teaches how letters correspond to sounds in spoken language, is the best method to teach children how to read.
Charter leaders must be especially mindful that teachers holding temporary teaching certificates understand the fundamentals of early literacy and are not using unscientific instructional materials. See our resources in this newsletter for a place to start. For a deeper dive into Florida’s three-cueing law, see here from ExcelinEd, which explains why Florida was among eight states to ban three-cueing in 2023.