The "whole language" approach to teaching reading and writing—which focuses on meaning rather than the subskills of language—began to take hold in U.S. schools in the 1980s, observers say. Elementary teachers began to move away from basal readers, workbooks, and the teaching of skills in isolation, and started to offer lots of "real" literature, greater emphasis on writing, more student choice, and the integration of language arts with other subjects. Today, after nearly 15 years, where does the movement stand?
The whole language movement is "definitely growing," says Marie Carbo, executive director of the National Reading Styles Institute, whose travels around the country bring her into contact with about 5,000 teachers a year. Teachers are highly interested in whole language, she says, although only a minority are using the approach extensively. "The majority are just starting to dabble," by putting more emphasis on literature or allowing students more choice. And most teachers—"probably 90 to 95 percent"—are still using basal readers.
Whole language is having an impact "more or less across the country," says Dorothy Strickland, a professor of reading at Rutgers University, who also travels widely. "I haven't found any place where the ideas aren't beginning to seep in." Educators may call the approach something different, she notes, such as "integrated language arts" or "language arts across the curriculum."
Teachers are being "very judicious" about what aspects of whole language theory they accept, says P. David Pearson, dean of the College of Education at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Most teachers strike a compromise between traditional practice and "a radical whole language stand," he says. For example, they find a balance between "entirely self-selected texts and a system in which the child has no choice." Overall, the use of whole language is "going better than I had anticipated," he says.
A very different view is offered by Jeanne Chall, professor emerita of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. "Overall, my impression is that [the whole language movement] is declining already," she says. Some schools are already disenchanted with whole language, she says, because they have found that it produces children who can't read well. "People are looking into the weaknesses" of the approach, she says.
Does research support the use of whole language?
"You're not going to find a body of evidence in the classic tradition of experimental design" that supports whole language—and for good reason, says Strickland. Standardized tests, the basis of most research, are "very limited" at capturing the benefits of whole language, she says. Children's ability to write, their familiarity with a range of genres, their enthusiasm for reading and writing—all are typically missed, advocates claim.
Research on whole language is "a sticky problem" because whole language advocates and critics differ on the type of research paradigm they accept, says Pearson. Whole language advocates prefer research that is naturalistic, ethnographic—research that looks at what is actually happening in the classroom. Therefore, to determine what might count as research poses "kind of a dilemma."
According to Chall, research has established that, for a child learning to read, reading is primarily a phonemic activity; the relationship between sounds and letters is basic knowledge. If children haven't mastered phonics, they cannot learn to read, she asserts.
Research has also shown that the systematic teaching of phonics benefits all children, especially those who are at risk, Chall says. Research does not support the notion that a focus on phonics is stultifying and deadens children's desire to read. Whole language is hurting children by not providing systematic teaching of phonics, she believes.
The Role of Phonics
The role of phonics in whole language is a major point of contention. Critics allege that whole language slights—or ignores—letter-sound relationships. Advocates say the approach does teach phonics, but in the context of whole texts, thereby allowing students to focus on meaning.
The phonics debate is "a nonissue," Strickland says, "but it keeps popping up." Despite the claims of some critics, "phonics is very important" within a whole language approach, she says; it is simply treated differently. Phonics skills are less likely to be treated in isolation than through spelling and writing.
Whole language teachers start with the whole text, Strickland explains, then help students look more closely at patterns in the text. Teachers follow student's lead in noting the link between letters and sounds; then teachers make these relationships more explicit. Compared to a skills-based approach, whole language teaches reading "more like the way kids learn to speak," she says.
Chall vigorously disputes the notion that children can learn to read as "naturally" as they learn oral language. "The problem is [that reading] isn't as natural as speech," she says—citing as evidence the masses of illiterate people in the world. Children need direct teaching of phonics, she insists. "We can't rely upon their discovery of the writing system through exposure to lovely little books." The teaching of phonics does not have to be dull, Chall adds. "It depends on how interesting the teacher makes it."
Ken Goodman of the University of Arizona—Tucson, a leading whole language theorist, differs sharply in his view of phonics. Children don't need a lot of phonics instruction, he says; they test out their own generalizations. Whole language teachers do talk about letter-sound relationships, he says, but they are more likely to say to children, "How does it sound to you? What do you think?" rather than just giving them the correct spelling.
Many whole language teachers teach phonics in the context of reading and writing, says Carla Heymsfeld, a reading specialist in Fairfax County, Va. For example, rather than assigning a worksheet on the letter B, a teacher might "pull out a poem with a lot of B sounds in it." Instead of teaching phonics skills for half an hour in the morning, the teacher constantly brings them in while children are reading and writing. "You structure your class so that phonics learning occurs within a meaningful context," she says.
Whole language treats the phonemic system as one system to discern meaning, says Jerome Harste, a professor of language education at Indiana University—Bloomington. While a traditional approach teaches reading through phonics, a whole language approach teaches reading primarily through the semantic system—through meaning. Yet in some ways, whole language teachers teach more phonics, Harste asserts, because invented spelling calls upon students to apply phonics knowledge.
Invented spellings are the crude, approximate spellings that young children devise, such as "lrn" for "learn" or "misef" for "myself." Supporters of whole language believe that teachers should allow young children to use invented spelling, so as not to inhibit their nascent desire to write.
Whole language advocates emphasize that invented spelling is just a temporary phenomenon. "A lot of parents don't understand that eventually children learn to spell conventionally," Heymsfeld says. When teachers don't insist on correct spelling from day one, children have a chance to be fluent writers and to write what they know about; they are not limited to the 30 words they can spell, she explains.
Moreover, invented spelling helps children learn phonics, Pearson says, because "they are always having to confront the symbol that goes with the sound." The benefits of invented spelling dramatically outweigh the costs, he believes—although he concedes that invented spellings "hang around longer than most people would like them to."
"There's a misconception that in learning language you can be perfect all along," Goodman says. Even when teachers allow invented spelling, children continually move toward conventional spelling, he emphasizes. Moreover, because children in whole language programs do a lot of editing as they prepare their work for "publication," they learn the importance of checking the dictionary and proofreading.
Invented spelling is "the best demonstration of the development of phonics relationships," Goodman asserts. Ironically, the same people who push phonics are generally upset by it, he adds.
Invented spellings are definitely a sticking point with some parents, Carbo says—and their concerns are not all unfounded. Children who have memory problems may find unlearning their invented spellings difficult, she says, while children who have analytic tendencies—who want their written work to be correct—are frustrated by the teacher's reluctance to give conventional spellings. Teachers must consider the varying abilities and styles of their students, Carbo says.
Explaining invented spelling to parents is vital, advocates say. A child's written work may look like "gobbledygook" to parents, Strickland says. When a writing sample is peppered with invented spellings, "to an untrained eye, it really looks like no one's in charge." Unlike parents, teachers can analyze children's work, noting an increase in initial or median consonants, for example. Teachers also need to explain that children are doing more writing early on—real writing, not copying sentences from the board.
Enough Modeling?
Whole language sometimes goes awry in the implementation, Carbo says. Teachers need to provide modeling—demonstrations of good reading—by using a pointer while they read from a big book or by using recorded books, for example. But in some whole language classrooms, children, especially the disadvantaged, are experiencing too little of this modeling phase, she believes. Some children are placed in paired reading too soon, where they hear a model that is not of high quality.
In places where test scores have gone down after a move to whole language, "teachers probably went to sustained silent reading too quickly, before the kids were competent readers," Carbo conjectures. Teachers probably bypassed strategies such as choral reading and recorded books.
Standardized test scores are "a major concern" of teachers, Carbo notes. Teachers are reluctant to give up worksheets because they believe they prepare students for the tests. "As long as so much pressure is placed on test scores, the heart and soul of whole language will not be practiced in many classrooms," she predicts. Instead, "you get [merely] the outer look of it," such as "a nice little library."
Many advocates of whole language object to the use of standardized tests; they prefer portfolios and other forms of authentic assessment. Goodman promotes using a wider range of indicators to assess whole language. One school, for example, monitored the number of books checked out of the library each month (the average was 25 per child). "We need to help administrators realize that rich documentation goes far beyond standardized test scores," Goodman says.
Chall views such endeavors with a skeptical eye. "They want to change all the tests hoping the kids will do better," she says. "But they're doing worse."
Others believe that standardized tests, while limited, are not necessarily an obstacle to whole language. "We shouldn't have to be afraid of these tests, so long as they are chosen to match our program," Heymsfeld says. Some standardized tests have items inappropriate for whole language—for example, asking children to circle the word that contains a "long A" sound—but other tests are more valid. "Standardized tests may not be the best way to assess children," she says, "but if a child can't read a paragraph and answer a couple of questions about it, that tells us something important."
Indelible Changes
Are educators likely to feel the effects of whole language into the next decade?
The ideas that undergird whole language are here to stay, Strickland believes, and over time they will have tremendous impact on the elementary school. Textbooks have already changed radically in response to the whole language movement, she notes. Today there is far less "formula" literature in textbooks. Children now get "untouched literature," which is a major departure from past practice. Whole language also has "a very, very strong hold in academe," Strickland says. Many new teachers are being trained in use of the approach. "That's going to make the big difference."
"I'm a little surprised with how much progress we've made," Harste says. Meaning is now accepted as the core of language learning, rather than skills. "That's a big concession." Attitudes have also changed greatly. Writing ability used to be considered "a gift from the gods." Now teachers know it has to be developed.
There are many signs that whole language concepts are being understood by a wider and wider range of teachers, Goodman says, as well as influencing state curriculum guides and assessment tools. "I don't agree with those who have been saying that whole language has crested," he says. "There's still a great expansion."
Whole language has "pretty well taken hold," Heymsfeld believes, and most educators want to go in this direction. However, "we may lose some of the ground we've gained" if whole language is implemented poorly. "If teachers neglect to make skills a part of their literature and writing programs, there will be a backlash and we may find ourselves back in basals and workbooks."
Chall believes this backlash is already happening, as disillusionment with the whole language movement spreads. "I think it will fall apart soon," she predicts. "The parents are seeing it first."
Use of whole language is "pretty wide-spread—endemic almost,"says Pearson. It would take root even more dramatically, he believes, if teachers felt more comfortable about the skills issue. Teachers worry that they will jeopardize children's future by not teaching them certain skills, he says. For the most part, however, he believes teachers have acted responsibly in not taking a hardline approach. They have "adapted rather than adopted" whole language ideas.
Whole language is "already taking over in a lot of places," Pearson says. "It will irrevocably change the conventional wisdom."