
Cueing is a commonly used strategy in early reading instruction, in which teachers prompt students to draw on multiple sources of information to identify words. It’s based on the now disproven theory that reading is a series of strategic guesses, informed by context clues.
What is cues education?
Cue education is a type of education that focuses on teaching students how to take cues in different situations. There are many different types of cues and the occupational therapist will teach the student what kinds of cues are best for them.
What is the importance of instructional cues?
Certainly, one of the aims of education is to foster desire and ability for students to learn independently. Although instructional cues generally help students attend to tasks, comprehend ideas, and retain ideas, the effectiveness of a cue depends on it's particular composition.
What are attention cues in the classroom?
Using cues is a one of many effective classroom management techniques. To initiate directions or signal for students to shift their focus from one state of attention to 100% attention, it is necessary to use some attention cues.
Do teachers still use cueing to teach students to read?
In 2019, an EdWeek Research Center survey found that 75 percent of K-2 and elementary special education teachers use the method to teach students how to read, and 65 percent of college of education professors teach it. Now, there are signs that cueing’s hold on reading instruction may be loosening.
What is the purpose of cues in a classroom?
Why should students respond to cues?
What is the best classroom management technique?

What is the 3 cueing system?
The three cueing model says that skilled reading involves gaining meaning from print using three types of cues: Semantic (word meaning and sentence context) Syntactic (grammatical features) Grapho-phonic (letters and sounds)
What is the meaning cueing system?
Cueing systems are the different kinds of information sources that someone might use to cue their reading of the words. What kinds of information can readers use to read words? One can use the pictures, of course.
Why are teaching cues important?
It allows teachers to convey entire concepts with a single gesture, and these simplified cues are easily understood by students with disabilities. When a teacher raises their hand, it can tell students that now is the time to remain silent and pay attention—all without a single word passing between them.
What is cueing in special education?
A cue is just a hint and does not lead the student to a direct answer. A prompt is much more invasive as it takes the student step-by-step through the task leading to a direct answer.
What are the 3 main cueing systems in reading?
The strategy is also referred to as “three-cueing,” for the three different sources of information that teachers tell students to use: 1) meaning drawn from context or pictures, 2) syntax, and 3) visual information, meaning letters or parts of words.
What are four cueing systems?
The Four Cueing Systems. The four cueing systems, Grapho-phonemic, Syntactic, Semantic and Pragmatic, are used in language development and are important for communication. We use all four systems simultaneously as we speak, listen, read, and write.
How can you manage your class using the cue technique?
An effective attention cue is one of the best classroom management techniques as it elicits a response that is as much on the level of the unconscious as it is on the conscious mind. Therefore, it should possess autonomic as well as behavioral qualities. There should be a behaviorally conditioned response to your cue.
What is an example of a verbal cue?
What are examples of verbal cues? Examples of verbal cues include words and phrases such as 'Listen', 'Let's review', 'Pay close attention', and 'what you need to do now'. Verbal cues may be both direct, such as 'read this book', or indirect, such as 'find a book to read'.
What are verbal cues in the classroom?
Summary: Verbal cues can be used in the classroom to direct focus and attention. They can be call and response, emphasis, and organizational cues.
What is a cue in a lesson plan?
Cues are quick verbal or non-verbal reminders of an expected classroom behavior. Visuals are materials used throughout the day to clearly communicate classroom expectations to students.
What are the five types of prompts?
Following are the different types of prompts1 Gestural Prompt. A gestural prompt refers to pointing, nodding or using any other gestures which will help the student understand what we are referring to. ... 2 Full Physical Prompt. ... 3 Partial Physical Prompt. ... 4 Full Verbal Prompt. ... 5 Partial Verbal Prompt or phonetic prompt.
What is pragmatic cueing?
A set of rules which allows for a message to be interpreted based on the social positioning of the author and audience as well as within its social context.
What does cueing mean in nursing?
[ku´ing] assisting an individual in the completion of a task by offering prompts.
What is cueing in speech therapy?
Verbal cues: Verbal cues are used when a therapist provides a verbal reminder that helps the child complete his or her task. Using the same /s/ example as outlined above, the therapist may say, “don't forget your snake sound!” One specific example of a verbal cue is called a phonemic cue.
What does cue mean in music?
Definition of 'cue' In the theatre or in a musical performance, a performer's cue is something another performer says or does that is a signal for them to begin speaking, playing, or doing something.
What is attention cueing?
Introduction. Spatial orientation occurs when attention is drawn to a specific location. Attention can be drawn to a location due to the appearance of a stimulus. In the Posner task, this drawing of attention to a location is called cueing.
What are the disadvantages of verbal cues?
A disadvantage of verbal cues is that, while teachers rely on one-way verbal exchanges as their primary means of teaching, a small percentage of learners rely on predominantly auditory information. Visual and Kinesthetic Cues.
Why are less proximal cues more necessary?
It is less proximal (or more distal). Less proximal cues become more necessary as movement is refined because proximal aspects are more ingrained or automatic (Rink, 1993). The notion of importance or centrality applies to all areas of instruction, not just skill development.
How are cues expressed?
Instructional cues may be expressed in three general ways: verbally, visually and kinesthetically. The content of a cue determines the teacher's options. The slogan, "No 'I' In TEAM", for instance, does not lend itself to kinesthetic expression. Although students could form the letters with their bodies, taking the time is not warranted because no reference is made to movement mechanics. By contrast, "sitting down in a chair" at the end of a spiking approach may be expressed in all three ways effectively. Teachers are encouraged to vary how cues are expressed, recognizing that students may respond better to one cue than another.
Why is it important to have a concise cue?
From the student's standpoint, the concise cue is easier to remember as well. It is much easier for a student to remember to "shake hands with the racket", than to "grip the racket with the top of the racket midway between the thumb and index finger."
What is a cue in a lesson?
A cue consists of a word, phrase, or sentence that describes a particular aspect of a concept or skill. While cues most often focus on motor skill development in physical education, they may also target fitness, strategy, character development, or any other aspect of lessons teachers deem appropriate. A growing body of research suggests that cues ...
Why are cues important?
It has to do with how important that information is to achieving success. Some cues are important because they target proximal aspects of movement. If a child does not know what direction to face his trunk while batting, telling him to shorten his swing has little value. It is less proximal (or more distal).
Why do cues help students understand?
Comprehension. In addition to helping students attend to ideas in a lesson, cues help students comprehend ideas. Naturally, students understand concepts better when teachers communicate them clearly and developmentally. Clarity depends, in part, on using the same terms consistently.
Why did TCWRP make revisions to the units of study in phonics and K-2 units of study?
Calkins said that TCWRP has made revisions to the Units of Study in Phonics and K-2 Units of Study in Reading curricula to reflect a change in its prompting approach.
What percentage of teachers teach reading?
In 2019, an EdWeek Research Center survey found that 75 percent of K-2 and elementary special education teachers use the method to teach students how to read, and 65 percent of college of education professors teach it. Now, there are signs that cueing’s hold on reading instruction may be loosening. Recently, one of the most influential reading ...
What is the MSV strategy?
The strategy—which is also known as three-cueing, or MSV—involves prompting students to draw on context and sentence structure, along with letters, to identify words. But it isn’t the most effective way for beginning readers to learn how to decode printed text.
What is the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project?
In a document that circulated this fall , the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, which develops the popular Units of Study for Teaching Reading curriculum, lays out a series of changes to its philosophy of early reading instruction.
Why do teachers use a chart?
It’s a subtle, but very important, distinction, said Duke, who created a chart to support teachers in deciding when to use prompts related to meaning. “Before they identify the word, they really need to be looking at letters and groups of letters in the word to figure out what that word is,” she said. After the child has correctly read a sentence, she said, then they can use context to figure out the meaning of any word they don’t understand.
How do you know if a word is recognizable?
After sounding out a new word a few times, that word becomes recognizable on sight through a process called orthographic mapping. Proficient readers don’t need to rely on context or syntax to identify what words say.
Why do kids check the picture?
Research has shown that encouraging kids to check the picture when they come to a tricky word, or to hypothesize what word would work in the sentence, can take their focus away from the word itself—lowering the chances that they’ll use their understanding of letter sounds to read through the word part-by-part, and be able to recognize it more quickly the next time they see it .
Why is the three cue system approach to reading counterproductive for weaker students?
The research evidence suggests that the three cueing systems approach to reading is counterproductive for weaker students because it reinforces the habits of poor readers and does not give them the systematic and explicit teaching necessary for them to be able to make the connection between the spoken and the printed word ( Tunmer et al., 2002 ).
What is the three cueing model?
The central belief in the three cueing model is the belief that readers do not need to read every letter in a word, or every word in a sentence; they instead ‘sample’ from the text and they rely on prediction and semantic context to extract meaning. Scientific studies of reading have demonstrated that skilled readers process every letter of the printed word (see Castles, Rastle & Nation, 2018) . This is done so quickly and automatically that it’s imperceptible to the reader. Initial encounters with words are slow until each word becomes unitised (stored in memory as a unique letter string) and fast word recognition develops.
Why is phonics downplayed in a three cueing model?
Knowledge of phonics is downplayed in a three cueing model because Smith (1973) mistakenly believed that an experienced and fluent reader identifies words (if they identify the word at all) as an ideogram, meaning that we read words as unanalysed wholes. This means that systematic and explicit approaches to phonics instruction are incompatible ...
What are the three cues in the appproach?
In the three-cueing appproach, children are encouraged to use semantic and grammatical cues first when they are attempting to read an unknown word (Eg. “What word would make sense here?”). Using grapho-phonic cues, such as noticing the letters in a word, or sounding out the unknown word using phonic knowledge, are used last. In this model, phonic knowledge should be used for ‘confirming predictions in reading’ (Emmitt et al. 2015).
What are some strategies that encourage guessing?
Skipping a word, looking at a picture, or trying a word that makes sense are all strategies that encourage guessing. According to a British research team that has undertaken several meta-analyses of reading instruction, putting semantic and syntactic cues on par with phonics for word reading is “little better than guessing since they often lead to learners producing words other than the target.”
What is the three cue system?
The three cueing systems approach is common in early reading instruction but it is not in keeping with evidence on how children learn to read. The three cueing system for reading is based on the psycholinguistic theories of Ken Goodman & Frank Smith, first published in the 1960s. The three cueing model says that skilled reading involves gaining ...
Is guessing words from context efficient?
Guessing words from context is not as efficient as phonic decoding. Poor readers, not skilled readers, rely heavily on context. Context guessing does not promote sight word learning in poor readers. Semantic errors are not a sign of better reading development than phonetic errors. One of the three cues in the three cueing model is not related ...
What do you mean when you say “teaching cues”?
Page 1/2 of the Teacher Tip Sheet | Using Cues or Prompts Education Cues or prompts are used to educate, recall, and reinforce a student’s ability to do a certain activity or perform a set of abilities. Cues or cues might be subtle, but they should be simple for both staff and students to notice and comprehend.
What are learning cues and how do you use them?
A learning cue is a word or phrase that indicates the key qualities or characteristics of a motor skill or activity (Rink, 2014). Learners at the cognitive stage are unable to handle a large amount of information and movement details. Learning cues assist students to focus on a single piece of information.
What does the term “visual cue” imply?
A visual cue is a signal and reminder of something; it aims to be self–explanatory and attentive, bringing to mind prior experiences and giving a framework for its own interpretation.
What are visual cues and how do you use them?
A visual prompt is an image, photograph, or item that instructs the youngster on how to do the desired skill or action (e.g., a washcloth or a picture of a washcloth as the cue to pick up the washcloth to wash face).
What is a cue from the environment?
Environmental cues are signals that a person receives from their surroundings that tell them what is going on and how to react. Teaching kids about the indicators that often accompany a change may help them move more smoothly and independently.
What is the hierarchy of cueing?
Hierarchy is being cued. A cue is a signal that instructs the patient on how to do the needed action. It may be expressed verbally or nonverbally [10]. Functional cues, description cues, categorization cues, phonemic cues, semantic cues, and other cues are provided for individuals with anomic aphasia.
How Are Nonverbal Cues Helpful?
Nonverbal communication is symbolic. It allows teachers to convey entire concepts with a single gesture, and these simplified cues are easily understood by students with disabilities. When a teacher raises their hand, it can tell students that now is the time to remain silent and pay attention—all without a single word passing between them. A student may use cues, such as sign language, to quietly request a bathroom break or communicate with a fellow student without disrupting the class. Nonverbal cues bridge the gap between students with disabilities and the world around them.
Why are nonverbal cues important?
Nonverbal cues are used to communicate with and ultimately educate students with disabilities. Although the classroom cues discussed throughout this article can be helpful for communicating with students of any age, grade level, or academic ability, they are most often used to reach students with disabilities, allowing these students to engage with teachers and peers in a way that would otherwise be out of reach due to cognitive, hearing, speech, or other impairments.
What are some examples of nonverbal cues?
Examples of Nonverbal Cues. If you’re a teacher, you already use nonverbal cues in the classroom. Eye contact, facial expressions, and posture are types of nonverbal cues that students pick up on whether you intend them to or not. However, there are nonverbal cues you can use intentionally to tip the scales in your favor.
Why do special education teachers put pictures on their desks?
Printed Pictures. Many special educators hold up printed pictures when they want to convey a concept to their entire class. A red stop sign may indicate that the class is too loud, while a pencil can remind students that their peers are still working on a task.
How to manage a classroom?
Every teacher has their own tried-and-true methods for managing a classroom. Common strategies include commending a student’s good behavior in front of their classmates or speaking to a disruptive student in private. Spoken praise or a stern warning can go a long way towards communicating with students of any age, but how do you connect with students who have mental or physical limitations inhibiting their ability to communicate?
Do you want to ensure that cues are biased?
As with any rule, you’ll want to ensure that cues, whether used to encourage or discourage behavior, are administered fairly. No one has a more emphatic sense of fairness than a grade-schooler. If students begin thinking that cues are biased toward certain students, they’ll be less likely to follow along.
The origins
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.
Scientists take on three cueing
It was the early 1970s, and Keith Stanovich was working on his doctorate in psychology at the University of Michigan. He thought the reading field was ready for an infusion of knowledge from the "cognitive revolution" that was underway in psychology.
Picture Power!
It's not hard to find examples of the cueing system. A quick search on Google, Pinterest or Teachers Pay Teachers turns up plenty of lesson plans, teaching guides and classroom posters.
Balanced Literacy
People have been arguing for centuries about how children should be taught to read. The fight has mostly focused on whether to teach phonics.
What is the purpose of cues in a classroom?
Using cues is a one of many effective classroom management techniques. To initiate directions or signal for students to shift their focus from one state of attention to 100% attention, it is necessary to use some attention cues.
Why should students respond to cues?
Students should respond in large part because it is automatic and unconscious, and less because they are making a situational choice.
What is the best classroom management technique?
Find one that works for the needs of your students and you. An effective attention cue is one of the best classroom management techniques as it elicits a response that is as much on the level of the unconscious as it is on the conscious mind. Therefore, it should possess autonomic as well as behavioral qualities.

‘Cautiously Optimistic’
- In a document that circulated this fall, the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, which develops the popular Units of Study for Teaching Reading curriculum, lays out a series of changes to its philosophy of early reading instruction. Lucy Calkins, the founding director of TCRWP, is one of the biggest players in the early reading market: Her Units of Study curriculum, commonly kno…
Change on The Horizon?
- Research on the importance of explicit, systematic phonics—and the comparative ineffectiveness of using contextual and syntactic cuesto identify words—has existed for decades. For now, though, other major literacy players that employ cueing in their instructional methods haven’t announced similar shifts. Education Week also asked Fountas and Pinnell, one of the most popu…
Origins of Cueing
- TCRWP doesn’t generally use the phrase “cueing” to describe its approach to reading and writing instruction. Even so, the strategies and philosophies that underlie this approach have been a part of the instruction in the program, and in other widely used early reading curricula. The idea that children use “cueing systems” to read was popularized by...
Not A ‘Zero-Sum Game’
- Calkins said that TCWRP has made revisions to the Units of Study in Phonics and K-2 Units of Study in Reading curricula to reflect a change in its prompting approach. The revisions affect, on average, about six pages in each of the 20 phonics books and each of the 20 reading books, and they will be in the next reprint. This new approach was also discussed at a recent free online TC…