Whole-Language Boondoggle- By Sam Blumenfeld
A: For the past fifty years a great debate has been raging among educators over
how to teach children to read. Lately the debate has degenerated into a tug of
war between the advocates of intensive phonics and the advocates of whole
language. The education establishment prefers whole language, while most
parents and some teachers prefer a phonetic approach. Two basic teaching
methods are in conflict here. One is the phonetic approach (known as phonics) . .
. [in which] youngsters try to sound out letters and syllables. The other method .
. . is the word-memory plan -- also known as "sight reading," "total word
configuration" or "word recognition." It has the more friendly nickname of "look
and say," since the youngster is supposed simply to look at a word and say it
right out. He memorizes the "shape" of the word, the configuration, and identifies
it with pictures in his workbook. Often he is taught to recognize phrases or whole
sentences in his picture book, or on flash (poster) cards, before he can
independently sound out and pronounce such simple words as cat or ball. If a war
is raging among public educators over how to teach reading, who do you think
the victims are? The children, of course. The stark tragedy is that millions of
children in public schools are being prepared for stunted lives as functional
illiterates and their parents haven't the faintest idea that this is taking place.
B: We who have been fighting this battle of phonics versus look-say for the last
three decades have known this for years. I became aware of the reading problem
back in 1962 when I read Rudolf Flesch's book, Why Johnny Can't Read,
published in 1955, which I did. In that book Flesch wrote: The teaching of reading
-- all over the United States, in all the schools, in all the textbooks -- is totally
wrong and flies in the face of all logic and common sense. Flesch then went on to
explain how, in the early 1930s, the professors of education changed the way
reading is taught in American schools. They threw out the traditional alphabeticphonics method, which is the proper way to teach children to read an alphabetic
writing system, and put in a new look-say, whole-word or sight method that
teaches children to read English as if it were Chinese, an ideographic writing
system. Flesch argued that when you impose an ideographic teaching method on
an alphabetic writing system you cause reading disability. Flesch, of course, was
not the first to write about the harm the look-say method could cause. As far
back as 1929, Dr. Samuel T. Orton, a neuropathologist, pointed out in an article
in the Journal of Educational Psychology that the sight method could cause
reading problems. His article was entitled "The 'Sight Reading' Method of
Teaching Reading as a Source of Reading Disability." He
C: Today, the bubbly promoters of whole language will tell you that their
programs are different from the Dick and Jane programs of yesteryear. Indeed
they are. They are much worse, if that is possible. Why are they worse? Because
they not only denigrate the alphabetic nature of our writing system but they even
deny the basic nature of reading. Whole language represents a major shift in
thinking about the reading process. Rather than viewing reading as "getting the
words," whole language educators view reading as essentially a process of
creating meanings. . . . It is a transaction, not an extraction of the meaning from
the print, in the sense that the reader-created meanings are a fusion of what the
reader brings and what the text offers. Trying to change an inaccurate, subjective
sight reader into an accurate, objective phonetic reader is not easy. The sight
reader is in the habit of leaving out words that are there, putting in words that
aren't there, substituting words, guessing words, mutilating words, truncating
words, skipping words, etc. Only a remedial program based on intensive,
systematic phonics can alter these bad habits.
D: Only one aspect of whole language has any merit at all, and that is its
rejection of the inane basal readers, like the Dick & Jane books, which are both
boring and practically meaningless. Whole language proponents advocate giving
children good books to read. Who can quarrel with that? The only problem is they
don't bother to teach the children to read before they give them the books. They
teach the children a lot about reading, but not how to read. Another aspect of
whole language that is terribly misguided is the concept of "invented spelling," in
which children are encouraged to write before they have been taught to read.
They are not taught how to hold the writing instrument correctly. They are not
taught how to form the letters correctly. And they are not taught to spell
correctly. They are simply told to write, to express themselves. The theory is that
sometime in the future the children will learn to write and spell correctly all by
themselves. There are two absolute no-no's in teaching: (1) never teach anything
that later has to be unlearned; and (2) never let your pupils develop bad habits
that must be corrected later on. Unfortunately, our educators commit both sins
every day of the week in every public school in America.
E: Why it Matters
D:Teaching a child to read by intensive phonics is quite simple. First, you teach
the child to recognize the letters of the alphabet. That is generally a fairly easy
task. Second, you teach the child the sounds the letters stand for. Various
phonics programs do that in a variety of ways. However, what is most important
in this phase is that the child be permitted to develop an automatic association
between letters and sounds, for that is crucial in becoming a good phonetic
reader. Phonic drills help a child achieve that needed automaticity. Third, you
give the child interesting little stories to read so that he or she can practice
sounding out new words. That's all there is to it. Sounds easy. It is easy. All it
takes is practice -- and your usual loving patience.
F: Sequential Order in Learning to Read by Phonics:
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Child learns the alphabet first.
Child learns the sounds the letters stand for by drill so that he or she
develops an automatic association of letters with sounds.
Child learns to "blend" sounds together, so that a . . . t is pronounced at.
Child sounds out whole words.
Child reads simple stories.
Child develops accuracy in decoding.
Child develops good pronunciation.
Child learns to spell correctly.
Child develops vocabulary and comprehension of new words.
Child writes stories and poems.
Sequential Disorder in Whole Language Instruction
Whole language instruction is based on the belief that children learn to read the
way they learn to speak: naturally and therefore do not really need much formal
instruction.
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Child is read to by teacher who uses a large book on an easel so that the
children can learn the words by their configurations and contextual
relationships.
Child is surrounded by books and expected to "read" them.
Child is taught to memorize sight words.
Child is expected to write before being able to read.
Child uses "invented spelling" in writing and is expected to correct himself
at some future date.
Child "writes" a book which is "published" in class and read aloud to fellow
classmates.
Child is taught to "take risks" in reading by substituting words, skipping
words, guessing the words.
Child is taught some letter sounds as one of the strategies to be used in
figuring out a word. This strategy is usually referred to as
"graphophonemics."
Child is taught to use picture clues, context clues, syntactic clues, and
phonetic clues in trying to figure out what the words say.
Child is encouraged to "interpret" the text rather than read it accurately.
Misreadings are considered "miscues" rather than errors.
No stress on proper pronunciation.
No stress on accuracy.
The reader "creates" the meaning.
Cooperative learning is stressed over individualism.