By Dr. Kymyona Burk, ExcelinEd
This op-ed originally appeared in SmartBrief
For most Americans, learning to read is a fundamental part of early childhood. Whether it was our parents reading to us at night or early school lessons full of colorful and rhyming stories, reading is a part of the beautiful and complicated puzzle that makes us who we are.
Our brains have been trained for years to take in the information that we see and turn it into something we understand. For students, the most crucial period for this training takes place between kindergarten and third grade. During those years, students slowly transition from learning to read to reading to learn. By fourth grade, most curriculum is being taught through reading.
The way we teach early literacy plays a huge role in a student’s ability to successfully read by the crucial fourth-grade checkpoint.
America is facing a reading crisis. According to NAEP, only 33% of fourth-grade students in the U.S. are reaching grade-level proficiency in reading.
This number is so low partly because schools have been using harmful reading practices such as three-cueing. This flawed instruction model teaches students to read based on meaning, structure and visual cues, redirecting the student from the word itself. Essentially, students are taught to guess a word based on a picture instead of sounding out the word.
Eight states banned three-cueing in 2023.
So, what is the right way to teach students to read? ExcelinEd is one of many education-focused entities that embrace and promote the research and evidence-based practice known as the science of reading.
To ensure every child can read by third grade, all educators must be trained in the science of reading, an evidence-based approach that teaches phonemic awareness, phonics/decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. This is the opposite of the three-cueing system.
