Units of Study in Phonics, Grade K Suitability Report: Three-Cueing Criteria

The resource encourages teachers to tell the students to look at the pictures to figure out what the words might say. It happened most often in the margins in the yellow boxes that say "Possible Coaching Moves"

The materials instruct the teacher to tell students to "read the room" and they will guess the words on the signage around the room.

On page 6 of Unit 3, the materials instruct teachers to have students use "support from the pictures" in beginning level books. This may be support for three cueing.

On page 20 of Unit 3, the materials encourage teachers to instruct students to use pictures and acting out the word as a way to figure out a word. Blending and decoding should be encouraged instead.

On page 56 of Unit 3, the chart recommends to teachers to say, "The page itself can help you think about what a word might mean. Check the picture. Think about the story." Three-cueing is cited here because the recommendation is to tell students to look at pictures in order to figure out a word, when research shows that students should be taught to resort to decoding and blending to read.

The materials include three-cueing on page 1 of Unit 4. The author instructs teachers to tell students to "look at the illustration and notice the picture of an ice-cream cone on the sidewalk to infer why Kim is feeling this way." Another example on this page is in the next paragraph. The author instructs teachers to tell kindergarten students to use "picture power to identify story elements, including the setting, the characters, and the characters' actions." Unit 4 has several instances of three-cueing that need to be addressed.

Unit 1 We Are Readers, Under “Name the Teaching Point” on p 104 and all throughout page 105

Unit 1 We Are Readers, Third row & fourth row in the last column

Under “Teaching” and “Active Engagement”

Unit 1, the top row of the table on the bottom half of page 27, it is telling students to point to the first letter, say the sound, and guess the word "if we know some of the letters in words, use them to help each other read"

Unit 1, the fourth bullet point talks about finding something in the picture that starts with the sound, this is 3 cueing, using a visual clue to read a word rather than decoding

Unit 1 the second bullet "Try it" has students choosing a letter, finding something in the book that starts with the letter and use pictures to guess words, this is 3 cueing as it is not encouraging students to sound out words, rather say the first sound and guess based on a picture.

In "Getting Ready" section of the page, Unit 2: Sharing Reading - only available in print

In "Getting Ready" section of the page, Unit 2: Sharing Reading - only available in print

In "Getting Ready" section of the page, Unit 2: Sharing Reading - only available in print