The Brain That Sees Patterns

The System That Wasn’t Working

For years, I did everything I was trained to do. I used the programs in every school I’d ever taught. I followed the three-cueing system while students read aloud to me. That’s the approach that tells kids to figure out unknown words by looking at pictures, using context clues, and thinking about what would make sense in the sentence—instead of sounding the word out.

“Let’s look at the pictures to get an idea of what this story is about.” I would “plant” words into their vocabulary in hopes that they would remember what I said when we went back through the story.

As the student guessed at words, I would encourage them to think, Does that make sense? Does that sound right? Does it look right? and then, Get your mouth ready for the first sound. Sounding out words was supposed to be the last resort, not the first tool.

I taught kids how to read through flashcards. “Memorize this word: was. Memorize this word: the.” I never explained why the word “was” didn’t have a Z, or why the E sounds like /ŭ/ in the word “the.” I didn’t know. Nobody knew. We just told kids to memorize those facts.

The books were predictable by design. The patterns helped kids “feel successful.” But success meant guessing the next word based on the picture and the pattern, not actually reading the word.

And every year, I’d see the same kids. First grade, second grade, third grade. Each year their self-esteem plummeted a little lower. Each year they knew deep in their hearts, “I can’t read.” Each year the feelings of frustration and shame would build.

I started asking questions.

I cornered the speech-language pathologist who visited our school twice a week. “If my students are saying /f/ for /th/, can I teach them to stick out their tongues? Is that okay?” Absolutely, she said.

“When should kids be able to say the /r/ sound?” By third grade, definitely.

“If a kid reads a word like ANIMAL and says AMINAL, should I correct them?” It’s cute, I know. But you should correct them.

“Do you teach your students to read words in your speech sessions?” Yes, we teach them to say sounds in isolation and blend sounds together.

Wait. Speech therapists teach kids how to read? Is it possible they knew more about teaching reading than I did?

Speech and language pathologists have known how to teach foundational reading skills for years. As a certified reading interventionist, I needed to learn from the speech and language experts. They knew a lot more about teaching reading than I did! This is when I realized that I should collaborate with speech therapists, and for the first time I learned that reading instruction should begin with manipulating sounds. I wondered if this was the phonics instruction they told us not to teach?

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the training, but I wasn’t alone. So, we kept using the same failing methods, spinning our wheels, blaming parents for not reading enough at home, blaming kids for not trying hard enough.

Meanwhile, the struggling readers kept piling up. Kids in the 30th and 40th percentile started sliding into the 20th. We didn’t have enough interventionists. We didn’t have the right curriculum. We didn’t have the right training, and we most definitely didn’t help our students learn to read. We helped them learn how to be good guessers at words.