As states continue to pass new legislation aimed at improving early reading instruction, one embattled instructional technique has become a special target for lawmakers: “three-cueing.”
At least eight states have introduced or passed bills this session that take aim at the approach, in which teachers coach beginning readers to rely on “cues” in the text, such as pictures, context clues, or syntax to identify words, not just the letters. Bills in five states ban the use of three-cueing in schools outright, while three require that the method be excluded from state literacy guidance covering methods and materials.
This flurry of legislation comes after at least 11 states prohibited three-cueing in schools, or prevented teacher-preparation programs from training future educators in the method, over the past two years.
Researchers have argued that teaching the cues, in practice, diverts children’s attention away from the letters and lowers the chances that they will apply their phonics skills—crucial practice with mapping spoken sounds to letters on the page that helps children store words in their long-term memory.
As recently as 2019, three-quarters of K-2 teachers said that they used the three-cueing system to teach students to read, according to an EdWeek Research Center survey. But in the years since, as the science of reading movement has gained ground, the approach has faced mounting criticism. Some popular curriculum publishers have announced that they have removed the three-cueing prompts from their programs.
Still, legislating what specific instructional techniques teachers can use in the classroom has proved controversial. Teachers’ unions, for instance, have pushed back against proposed bans on three-cueing, arguing that they infringe on educators’ ability to exercise professional judgment.
Lawmakers who have sponsored these bills say they’re a necessary protection for students in a landscape where cueing remains popular, despite other mandates in many states requiring schools to use evidence-based methods.
“There are still a lot of educators that don’t understand that they are using three-cueing to teach students to read,” said Georgia Sen. RaShaun Kemp, a Democrat, who introduced one of two pieces of legislation banning cueing in the state this year. One bill, which passed with bipartisan support, is headed to the governor’s desk.
“That’s no fault of teachers,” Kemp said. “That’s why we have to address it at the educator preparation level.”
But others argue that these proposals are so vaguely worded as to prohibit other instructional approaches that could support student success—and that they may alienate educators.
“Telling them what they can and can’t do in the classroom, it doesn’t sit well with them,” said Esther Quintero, a senior fellow at the Albert Shanker Institute, a think tank affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers that has published analyses of states’ science of reading legislation.
Three-cueing is not an evidence-based approach, Quintero said, but passing laws against it may not be the most effective way to change teacher practice.
“I wonder if that backfires,” she said.
Defining what states mean by ‘evidence-based’
For years, cueing has been ubiquitous in early reading instruction.
It’s a way that teachers prompt children to tackle words that they don’t recognize. Materials from popular curricula to classroom anchor charts have told teachers to ask students: What word might sound right? What word would look right here? Students rely on clues in the book—pictures, the first letter of the word, the context of the sentence—to triangulate an educated guess.
(Older readers who can already identify words do use context and sentence structure to help them understand what they read. The key problem with cueing in early reading, researchers say, is that it does not develop kids’ automatic connection between letters and sounds, the critical tool for identifying new words.)
But over the past decade, several developments in the reading field began to call the method into question. Starting in 2013, Mississippi overhauled its approach to teaching early reading, centering explicit, systematic phonics instruction—and teaching teachers to eschew three-cueing—and raised reading achievement. In 2018, Emily Hanford, a journalist with American Public Media, began to publish a series of radio documentaries pulling apart the faulty foundations of cueing’s popularity.
In the past five years, at least 33 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation requiring that schools use evidence-based approaches to teaching early reading—some explicitly using Mississippi as a model. But often, the laws don’t describe what falls under that umbrella.
“Part of the issue is how do we define evidence based; I think there’s a lot of variation in that,” said Quintero. “Some of these laws do not include a definition, or it’s a vague definition.”
That’s led to some curriculum providers sprinkling in a bit of phonics, keeping three-cueing, and saying that their products meet the requirements in new legislation, said Kymyona Burk, a senior policy fellow at ExcelinEd, an education advocacy organization launched by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush that has written model legislation for banning three-cueing.
“It’s important to not only emphasize what should be included in the science of reading and structured literacy instruction, but it’s equally important to include what should not be used,” Burk said. Bans aren’t meant to be a slap on the wrist for teachers, she said, but rather a way to hold vendors and school districts accountable.
Lawmakers in Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, and Missouri have all introduced bills that would prohibit teachers from employing three-cueing or using materials that include the method.
“All this does is reemphasize that you shall, as your primary reading source, use the science of reading that’s already in statute,” said Missouri Rep. Ed Lewis, a Republican, who introduced the state’s bill.
But Missouri State Teachers Association spokesperson Todd Fuller said that the ban on cueing would amount to “further changes” to the state’s 2022 comprehensive literacy law.
“MSTA wants to ensure that teachers have the tools needed to meet the needs of all students in terms of reading success,” he said, in a statement.
The text of the Missouri bill states that teachers can use “visual information and strategies that improve background and experiential knowledge, add context, and increase oral language and vocabulary to support comprehension, but such visual information and strategies shall not be used to teach word reading.”
Should states offer guidance or mandates?
In three other states—Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York—proposed legislation targeting cueing doesn’t ban the practice outright.
Instead, a New Jersey bill would prevent the method from inclusion in the state’s literacy plan. A Massachusetts proposal would explicitly specify that cueing doesn’t fall under the definition of evidence-based instruction. And a New York bill would prohibit the state’s education department from recommending materials that feature the practice.
Language focused on guidance and recommendations, rather than requirements, is in line with New York’s approach to the science of reading movement. In early 2024, the state’s department of education released instructional frameworks for pre-K-12, but didn’t demand that districts follow them. “The one thing we’re not doing is mandating,” Betty Rosa, the state’s commissioner of education, told Education Week at the time.
A focus on recommendations rather than mandates could make changes more palatable for teachers, Quintero said. Still, critics of this looser approach have argued that it could leave openings for schools to continue to promote unproven practices.
There’s a broader problem in the reading instruction field that legislation targeting individual practices is unlikely to fix, Quintero said. Teachers need access to a shared body of knowledge, created and vetted by both researchers and educators, that can drive their practice.
“I think these laws are trying to fill a gap that exists,” she said, “and I’m not sure that these are the right tools to fill the gap.”
