Cognitive science offers no support to the assumption that all early learners have the cognitive ability to perform such a sophisticated task.
It has to be expected that when you ask a young learner to…. “Read to the end of the sentence and try to work out what the word is.” the student will usually ‘guess’.
Guessing is NOT reading. It is a game of word roulette – especially in low VAS students.
The sad thing is that, once students have established a tendency to guess based on minimal cues, it is very difficult to break this inappropriate reading habit. Even if a student is taught to blend and chunk, they will continue to use indiscriminate guessing. Intense and supportive intervention is required to break the guessing habit and finally establish sound, accurate reading responses.