OCPA column: Bad instruction prompts lawsuit

Bad instruction prompts lawsuit

By Jonathan Small

One of the lower-key victories of the 2024 Oklahoma legislative session was passage of Senate Bill 362, which stated that Oklahoma public-school teachers “shall be prohibited from using the three-cueing system model of teaching students to read” starting in the 2025-2026 school year.

Under the three-cueing method, students are encouraged to guess words based on associated pictures and context, and to memorize entire words, rather than learn to sound them out phonetically.

APMreports has noted “that cognitive scientists have repeatedly debunked” three-cueing, while ExcelinEd in Action noted the three-cueing system “can be boiled down to this: Teachers using this method instruct students to guess.”

Eliminating three-cueing will prevent unnecessary academic hardship for Oklahoma children. Lawmakers deserve praise for passing the ban, particularly state Sen. Adam Pugh, R-Edmond, who championed the issue.

But the benefits of SB 362 may extend beyond academic impact. It turns out the ban could also limit future financial liability for Oklahoma schools that might otherwise face litigation.

On Dec. 4, a class-action lawsuit was filed in Massachusetts Superior Court on behalf of two parents whose children were allegedly harmed by their schools’ use of three-cueing instruction. The defendants include several individuals and companies that have produced reading curriculum that relies on three-cueing instruction, which the lawsuit described as “defective goods and services.”

“Thanks to Defendants’ success in selling their defective products, it is now common for teachers to see cohorts of third, fourth, or fifth graders who—despite having received alleged literacy instruction in earlier class years—do not actually know how to read,” the complaint noted.

One parent had to send two children to private school and hire year-round private tutoring from grades four through seven to “repair the damage done” by cueing instruction. That ultimately cost the family “more than twice” what they paid to send another child to college.

Despite “being unable to read,” the complaint said school officials claimed another family’s child could read at grade level “solely because he could successfully guess words from pictures.”

“When presented with chapter books in fourth grade,” the complaint stated, “it became apparent” that the child “was far behind many of his peers—but the damage already had been done.”

Since the 1960s, research has shown phonics-based instruction works, but too many education officials have ignored that reality and insisted on using alternative methods that don’t teach kids to read. That creates real harm for children who are advanced through school without literacy skills.

Yet the embarrassment school officials should have felt for failing to teach children to read has, apparently, not been enough to motivate change in many cases. But one suspects that attitude may shift if officials now face personal and institutional financial loss because of avoidable instructional failure.

One hopes Oklahoma officials will embrace what works – phonics – rather than see our courts clogged with similar lawsuits in the years ahead.

Jonathan Small serves as president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.