Whole Language Packaged as Phonics
Reading researcher Louisa Cook Moats recently identified "lack of rigor and
disrespect for evidence in reading education" among the reasons for the persistence
of the ineffective whole language reading instruction method.
As an example, she cited an October 1999 Education Leadership article titled
"Whole Language Works: Sixty Years of Research," by three authors "who
caricature code-emphasis instruction . . .; make statements that contradict every
authoritative research summary on reading . . .; and misrepresent the views of
authors who are referenced, such as Carol Chomsky."
Reading expert Mary Damer recently found a more outrageous example in the
book, Month-by-month Phonics for First Grade: Systematic, Multilevel Instruction
by Patricia M. Cunningham and Dorothy P. Hall, one of the textbooks sent to every
Illinois kindergarten, first grade, and second grade teacher as part of the Illinois
Statewide Reading Initiative.
Damer noted that although "phonics" was the main word in the title of the book, the
text immediately revealed it was whole language deceptively packaged as phonics.
The Cunningham-Hall book "is no more about phonics than the man in the moon,"
said Damer. Instead of teaching explicit, systematic phonics, the authors urge
teachers to begin reading instruction with sight words. By the second month of their
schooling, students are being taught--not just encouraged--to use the whole
language technique of guessing at words based on context.
"I . . . was unaware that anyone would have the chutzpah to attach such a title to a
tome where the author espoused learning sight words before talking haphazardly to
students about the variation in sounds of different letters," said Damer.