I wrote a blog post about the big organisations that still continue to promote multi-cueing word-guessing strategies - so you see, this is far beyond the occasional teacher in the occasional school:
https://phonicsintervention.org/2017/01 ... ds-advice/
In this day and age, with a wealth of international research findings in reading instruction available to view on the internet, how can any intervention programme, or any guidance for parents of beginners or children with dyslexic tendencies, persist with multi-cueing reading strategies for lifting the words off the page? The weakest and slowest-to-learn are the very learners who will be most damaged by such practice and this is well-evidenced in the research literature.
This blog post is a biggie. What I am about to say really needs to be said (not just by me). It needs to be said over and again – and the message spread – and organisations promoting flawed methods, information and guidance for reading instruction should be held to account. It’s THAT serious. Whilesoever the world is flooded with wrong, flawed, inadequate and damaging misinformation, we shall never achieve the levels of literacy for all that can be achieved.
This includes all sorts of organisations including (some) intervention organisations, teacher-training organisations, governmental organisations, charitable organisations, literacy organisations, educational organisations, research organisations, dyslexia advisory groups, publishing organisations, manufacturing organisations, advisors and schools.
I’ll jump in quickly here to say that many people ARE saying what I’m drawing attention to here, but sadly, the voices are mainly disconnected or ignored, even ridiculed by some (for example, being labelled as the ‘phonics police‘), and, actually, proving powerless and more often than not – falling on deaf ears. It can be enormously difficult or impossible to hold people and organisations to account to get flawed and potentially damaging advice changed despite urgent need and plenty of evidence. Everyone needs to get their act together and get on board with research-informed reading instruction – NOW! Here is my message – change if you need to. Do you need to? THEN DO IT!
Do read the shocking evidence/examples I provide via my blog post, link above!