There is a huge difference between using various cues (multi-cueing) to support understanding of the text compared to using cues such as pictures, context and first letter/s of words to guess the words on the page.
Here is evidence that multi-cueing is actually (wrongly) promoted as a means to lift the words off the page with phonics decoding a very misrepresented strategy and low in the pecking order of what readers should do to lift the words off the page.
Many schools and teachers, even in England despite the official promotion of the Simple View of Reading as a 'useful conceptual framework' to replace the multi-cueing Searchlights model, give the following type of (flawed) guidance to parents to support their children read:
Miscue Analysis (the 'running record') was also developed with flawed understanding and yet is still promoted as a valid analysis of children's reading:An emphasis on the three-cueing system is evident in these advisory booklets provided to parents from two local schools.
School 1: During reading. When your child gets stuck on a word, follow these 4 (sic) steps.
Ask your child to:
1. Guess what the word might be.
2. Look at the picture to help guess what the word might be.
3. Go back to the start of the sentence and re-read it, adding the word you think might make sense.
4. Read to the end of the sentence and check that the word "makes sense".
5. If the word makes sense then check if it "looks right" (could it be that word?).
If the word is still incorrect, tell your child the word and allow him/her to continue reading. It is inappropriate for your child to be directed to "sound out" words, using individual letter sounds, as many words cannot be identified in this manner.
School 2: Teaching your child reading strategies: If your child has difficulty with a word:
· Ask your child to look for clues in the pictures
· Ask your child to read on or reread the passage and try to fit in a word that makes sense.
· Ask your child to look at the first letter to help guess what the word might be.
Finally, psychometric studies have indicated that measures of alphabetic coding ability rather than of semantic and syntactic ability are the strong predictors of word identification and comprehension facility (Vellutino, 1991). Whole language theorists had assumed the converse to be true. The finding regarding comprehension is particularly damning to the argument for psycholinguistic guessing, with its unfailing focus on meaning.
“Two inescapable conclusions emerge: (a) Mastering the alphabetic principle (that written symbols are associated with phonemes) is essential to becoming proficient in the skill of reading, and (b) methods that teach this principle are more effective than those that do not (especially for children who are at risk in some way for having difficulty learning to read)” (Rayner et al., 2001, p.1).
Thus the presumption that skilled readers employ contextual cues as the major strategy in decoding is not supported by evidence. There is, however, no dispute about the value of contextual cues in assisting readers gain meaning from text (Stanovich, 1980). The comprehension of a phrase, clause, sentence or passage is dependent on attention to its construction (syntax) and also to the meaning of the text surrounding it (semantics). The critical issue here is the erroneous assertion that the use of contextual strategies is beneficial in the identification of words, and that skilled readers make use of these strategies routinely.
Does it matter how the process is conceptualised?
Yes, it is crucial. For one reason, a test developed expressly to assess students’ usage of the three-cueing system is frequently employed to ensure students are in fact using this flawed system. The significance of any reading errors is thus superimposed on the reading behaviour through the adoption of the three-cueing system conception of reading. " ... the model of reading makes the understanding of miscues possible" (Brown, Goodman, & Marek, 1996, p. vii).
Miscue analysis is a very popular approach to assessing reading progress by attempting to uncover the strategies that children use in their reading. Goodman and his colleagues in the 1960's were interested in the processes occurring during reading, and believed that miscues (any departure from the text by the reader) could provide a picture of the underlying cognitive processes (Goodman, 1969). He used the term miscue, rather than error, reflecting the view that a departure from the text is not necessarily erroneous (Goodman, 1979). Readers' miscues include substitutions of the written word with another, additions, omissions, and alterations to the word sequence.