The theory is known as "three cueing." The name comes from the notion that readers use three different kinds of information — or "cues" — to identify words as they are reading.

It has been a constant refrain among my friends that when someone egregiously misinterprets something online, there is a real possibility that they literally do not know how to read. This is a bit of a joke, but also it's not, given the prevalence of three-cueing techniques used in American schooling. I recommend everyone read (REALLY READ) this page. They are not teaching 'reading'! It's guessing!

There are examples on this page of educational tools that tell kids to skip words that are hard! This is not teaching reading! This is teaching skimming!

Margaret Goldberg, a teacher and literacy coach in the Oakland Unified School District, remembers a moment when she realized what a problem the three-cueing approach was. She was with a first-grader named Rodney when he came to a page with a picture of a girl licking an ice cream cone and a dog licking a bone.

The text said: "My little dog likes to eat with me."

But Rodney said: "My dog likes to lick his bone."

AAAA!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Goldberg realized lots of her students couldn't actually read the words in their books; instead, they were memorizing sentence patterns and using the pictures to guess. One little boy exclaimed, "I can read this book with my eyes shut!"

"Oh no," Goldberg thought. "That is not reading."