More informed people than me have written a lot about it; this seems like a good explanation (and the graph in the preview is quite illustrative for a quick summary)
basically, if a three-cue reader doesn't understand something, they fill in the "blank" based on what makes sense to them, personally
The three-cueing approach is common in early reading instruction but it is not in keeping with evidence on how children learn to read The three-cueing system for reading is based on the psycholinguist...
