Learning To Read and Whole Language Ideology

by Jeffrey M. Jones, M.D..,Ph.D.

Probably no other subject provokes such bizarre interactions between teachers,
school administrators, and parents as the selection of beginning reading programs
in American schools. Many districts have "closet phonics teachers," who close the
doors to their classrooms, get out their phonics-based teaching materials, and
teach their children how to read using phonics. When a parent expresses chagrin
over the lack of phonics in reading instruction or the discovery that his child
cannot read, school administrators typically say, "There is lots of research to
support our approach." The "approach" of course is an "eclectic reading program"
or "whole language program." The educators never produce any concrete
research to back up their assertions. But the parent is invited to produce research
that proves the educators wrong. This is a rather stark role reversal. Shouldn't it
be the education professional who is charged with producing research to convince
the parent? Hopefully this essay will make life a little easier for parents caught in
this predicament.
Reading is the process of constructing meaning from written texts(1). Phonics is
concerned with teaching letter-sound relationships as they relate to learning to
read (1,2). While English writing is based on an alphabetic code, there is not a
one-to-one relationship between graphemes (printed symbols) and phonemes
(speech sounds) they represent. "Cracking the code" denotes learning to associate
printed letters with the speech sounds they represent. In discussing beginning to
read, cracking the code refers to learning letter-sound relationships via the ability
to apply phonics. When a child has learned to associate all specific printed letters
with specific speech sounds, the code has been mastered, or cracked. The child
then can arrive at an approximation for the pronunciation of most printed word
symbols (1,2). "Phonics-first," "intensive phonics," "systematic phonics,"
"decoding," or "code emphasis" refer to reading programs that emphasize use of
phonics at the inception of reading instruction and throughout the first 1-3 years
of reading instruction. "Look-and-say," "whole-word," "sight-reading," "linguistic,"
or "psycholinguistic" refer to an approach to reading instruction taken by
educators such as William S. Gray during the first third of the twentieth century.
They wanted to turn schools away from "heartless drudgery." Gray advocated a
look-and-say approach. He thought children would make more rapid progress in
reading if they identified whole words at a glance, as adults seem to do. In its
more conservative form, look-and-say involves teachers teaching a limited
number of sight words to children before phonics analysis is introduced. In its
severe form, educators backing sight reading seek to avoid phonics completely. I
will use "look-and-say" to refer to reading teaching that minimizes structured use
of phonics. One may hear the term "language experience" (2) used to describe a
program for teaching reading. In its conservative form, such a program tends to
work on speaking, listening, and writing skills as well as reading. Actually almost
any good reading instruction program will interface in some way with the teaching
of these skills. In its most severe form, language experience becomes the same
thing as "whole language." As you will see later, the term "whole language" means
different things to different educators. This is a common problem that parents
face when educators talk. You frequently don't know what they really mean.
Whole language can mean simply having printed material readily available to
children to use and reading to kids to get them excited about reading. This is a
concept with which anyone would agree. Whole language can also denote a belief
system, an ideology, which, if used to guide reading instruction, can be quite
destructive.
Basal reading programs are a complete package of reading materials (1). They
provide an entire reading curriculum (summarized in a "scope and sequence"
chart), instructional strategies for teaching reading (through teachers' manuals), a
graded anthology of readings for children (readers or primers), and practice
exercises (work sheets and workbooks). Basal reading programs are organized by
grade level with most programs beginning at kindergarten and continuing through
eighth grade. An entire basal reading program would make a stack of books and
papers four feet high. To develop one of these programs, a large publishing
company may invest up to $15 million. Needless to say many more millions are
earned yearly selling these programs so that there are vested commercial
interests in use of any particular program (1). The programs are heavily marketed,
with five well known programs having 70% of the American market. (1,3)
Although educators often say teachers use whatever reading materials and
techniques work for them in beginning reading instruction, in fact commercial
basal programs drive reading instruction strongly. Studies have shown that basal
reading programs account for 75-90% of what goes on during reading periods in
elementary school classrooms (4). A number of classroom studies indicate that,
for the most part, teachers follow instructional strageties prescribed in a given
program's teachers' manuals and that students use the program's Readers and
workbook materials (5).
Parents need to be able to ask probing questions about basal programs selected
by their schools and about reading instruction in their childrens' schools.
Becoming a Nation of Readers (BNR) is an excellent resource for interested
parents (1). This 145-page monograph was prepared by the Commission of
Reading of the U.S. Department of Education. Although it is the product of the
Commission, its staff, and 35 consultants, it is quite readable. It clearly made
waves in the educational establishment. Because the report was likely to be quite
influential, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) had difficulty
bringing themselves to distribute it (6) when it was released in 1985 because BNR
recommended the use of explicit phonics instruction in grades 1 and 2. The NCTE
eventually produced a brief monograph to act as a reply to BNR (6), a reply that I
found to be anemic in comparison to the BNR report. Unfortunately, it appears to
me that the NCTE and the International Reading Association (IRA) have had a
leadership over the past several years that is dominated by whole language
enthusiasts. In my discussion later regarding whole language, I will reproduce
some statements by Kenneth Goodman, who is past president of the IRA. The
concensus of the experts who wrote BNR was that skilled reading is constructive,
fluent, strategic, motivated, and a lifelong pursuit. Phonics plays a role in enabling
students to develop their decoding skill to the point where it is automatic and
requires little conscious attention.
Parents need to know that there is a group of educators who espouse a pure
whole language ideology for reading instruction that rejects use of phonics and
use of basal reading materials. I found it difficult to find a concise, logical
explication of whole language. These folks tend to prove points by speaking in
analogies. Because pure whole language is a set of beliefs to be acted upon and
defended, I think it is best termed an ideology. Whole language adherents believe
"language is whole" and that reading will happen if you just immerse kids in
language. More specifically they tend to believe: (a) written language is language;
(b) when a child is surrounded by speaking and naturally occuring writings
("literature" by definition) the child will learn to read "incidently" as a natural
"personal" (psycholinguistic) and "social" (sociolinguistic) experience; (c) use of
phonics and prepared basal reading materials to teach "skills" (used in a
pejorative sense) will inhibit natural learning; (d) there is a large orally transmitted
(teacher to teacher, researcher to researcher/teacher) and written body of
research supporting (a) and (b); and (e) teachers who choose to use whole
language to teach reading must be supported or society is infringing on their
rights. Items (b) and (c) of this list appeals to Piaget's philosophy and cognitive
learning theories in a vague sort of way. Item (e) seems to mix reading instruction
into the teacher empowerment movement. I assert that as bizarre as these ideas
seem, when one strips away the flowery rhetoric of whole language enthusiasts,
the above five items constitute their credo. I will offer you several exhibits to
support my summation of their belief system and then discuss each exhibit
separately:

Exhibit A: Definition of whole language according to Diane Stephens in Research on

Whole Language: Support for a New Curriculum (10):
1. Learning in school ought to incorporate what is known about learning outside of
school.
2. Teachers should base curricular decisions on what is known about language and
learning, should possess and be driven by a vision of literacy, should use observation to
inform teaching, and should reflect continuously.
3. Teachers as professionals are entitled to a political context that empowers them as
informed decision makers.

Exhibit B: Excerpts from "Whole Language: What's New?" by Altwerger

et al. (11):
[1] The key theoretical premise for whole language is that the world
over, babies acquire language through actually using it, not through
practicing its seperate parts until some later date when the parts are
assembled and the totality is finally used. The major assumption is
that the model of acquisition, through real use (not through practice
exercises), is the best model for thinking about and helping with the
learning of reading and writing.
[2] Language acquisition (both oral and written) is seen as natural - -
not in the sense of innate or inevitable unfolding, but in the sense that
when language (oral or written) is an integral part of functioning of a
community and is used around and with neophytes, it is learned
"incidentally"...
[3] Little use is made of materials written specifically to teach reading
and writing. Instead, whole language relies on literature, on other print
used for appropriate purposes (e.g. cake-mix directions used for really
 making a cake, rather than for finding short vowels), and on writing for
varied purposes.

Exhibit C: Excerpts from "Twenty Questions about Teaching

Language," by Goodman and Goodman (12):
[1] Early in our misuse research, we concluded that a story is easier to
read than a page, a page easier to read than a paragraph, a
paragraph easier than a sentence, a sentence easier than a word, and
a word easier than a letter. Our research continues to support this
conclusion and we believe it to be true....
[2] It is through errors...that we've learned that reading is a
psycholinguistic guessing game... The Hawaiian child who reads "He
was one big fat duck" for "He was a big fat duck" is letting us in on the
ability to read one kind of dialect and translate into dialect in order to
comprehend....
[3] ...we can teach children letter names and the sounds letters
represent and we can teach them words in isolation from the context
of language, but we know that these methods do not lead children to
read.

At first glance the points in Stephens definition appear rather opaque. But when viewed through the
lens of my characterization of whole language ideology you can actually see what she is trying to say. I
recommend Engelman's book War Against the Schools' Academic Child Abuse (13) for a more
complete explication of criticisms applicable to Exhibits [B] and [C]. In any event, stripped of its
rhetoric, Exhibit [B] says:

1. Written language is language.

2. Babies acquire language through actually using it, not through practicing its seperate
parts.
3. Oral language is learned "incidentally" (as a aspect of doing something else).
4. Therefore, written language is best learned "incidentally" (a la cake-mix routine)

This represents distorted logic. First, written language is not language. It is a representation of a
language, hopefully of a language known to the learner. When a baby starts out babbling, what
language is that? Also, the fact that a six year old knows a lot more language than the two year old
suggests that many specifiable "parts" and aspects were learned in four years. It has been estimated that
by the time a child is six years old he has a 4,000 to 24,000 word speaking and listening vocabulary
upon which to draw in learning to read (14,15). We don't start from scratch when we teach reading. We
assume a basic oral language understanding. Do parents really want a six year old, who has mastered
language and who knows much about word meaning and syntax from speaking and listening to be
learning a language when he learns how to read or to be learning to read "incidentally?" I doubt it.
Parents expect the teacher to direct the child's learning, which is to be quite specific. It does not
involve learning a language but a code expressing a familiar language. The teacher may have 28
students to teach the very specific things they don't know about "written language."
Now let's look at item [1] of Exhibit [C]. Can the child read a sentence without
being able to read the component words? Really? If the words are harder than
sentences, and if sentences are made from words, what phenomenon lets kids
transcend the more difficult unit (words) to get the easier unit (sentences)? If
something is harder than something else, probably someone would fail to learn it.
Engelman (13) believes there ought to be something called the "Goodman
Syndrome." These children would fluently read stories, but when asked to read a
page, they would make many mistakes. They would stumble horribly over
individual words and find letter identification impossible. Goodman's assertion also
reminds me of performer Woody Allen's joke about speed reading. "I took a speed
reading course," he said, "and it really worked! I read War and Peace in 20
minutes! It was about Russia." Item [2] of Exhibit [C] seems benign at first glance.
However, whether a child is Hawaiian or not, substituting words is not a good
thing for him to do. If teaching practices actively encourage this behavior, we get
something the Merck Manual, a standard medical reference text refers to as one
of the signs of "primary reading disability" or "word blindness," namely, "the
tendency to substitute words for those one cannot read." Finally there is item [3]
of Exhibit [C]. With a single sentence all the research supporting the use of
phonics is dismissed. Here Goodman is confusing factors important in motivating
children to read with the skills important to allowing them to do so.
What is the research concerning whole language as opposed to traditional
programs that emphasize use of phonics? A comprehensive review of whole
language effectiveness was conducted by Stahl and Miller in 1989 (16). They
looked at 5 projects conducted as part of a U.S. Office of Education study of first
grade reading programs and at 46 additional studies that appeared as
dissertations, transcripts of lectures, or journals, which they felt had sufficient
data to permit a metastatistical analysis. They concluded "we have no evidence
showing that whole language programs produce effects that are stronger than
existing basal programs, and potentially may produce lower effects. The
alternative, that whole language programs are too new to evaluate, also suggests
a lack of evidence of its effectiveness." There is also the review of the theoretical
foundations of the phonics-first versus whole-language approaches to reading
instruction produced by Professor Vellutino of State University of New York in 1991
(17).
He summarizes his findings as follows:

The implications of the research for teaching children to read should be apparent. The
most basic dictate seems to be that instruction that promotes facility in word
identification is vitally important to success in reading. Accordingly, instruction that
facilitates both phoneme awareness and alphabetic coding is vitally important to
success in reading. However, there is nothing in the research that precludes the use of
whole-language-type activities in teaching reading, such as use of context for monitoring
and predictive purposes, vocabulary enrichment to imbue printed words with meaning,
discussion that would encourage reading for comprehension, integration of reading,
writing, and spelling to concretize the relationships between and among these
representational systems, and so forth. [emphasis added] (17).

Finally, there are two large monographs which have reviewed the research regarding reading instruction
comprehensively. Both of these, one written by Jeanne Chall (18) and the other more recently by
Marilyn Jager Adams (19) have concluded that phonics instruction is of prime importance for reading
instruction, especially for the first one to two years of instruction.
The whole language crowd has had a simple retort to the assembled research that
makes their positon unsupportable - - they ignore it. Diane Stephens, in the
monograph from which Exhibit [A] was taken extolled the pure whole language
approach. She listed 38 papers which she believes represent research that
supports the unfettered use of whole language. Of these papers she reviewed,
only 8 appeared in periodicals where some peer review was possible. The
remainder were unpublished masters or doctoral dissertations, technical reports,
book chapters, abstracts in yearbooks, or transcribed lectures. Nearly all the
studies she cites are "descriptive" of classrooms implementation of whole
language or "case studies" of individual students learning to read. She claims 10
studies were comparative; however, when I examine her synopses of these works,
only eight truly compare what at least their authors label "whole language" with
"skill based" instruction. Of the latter 8 papers, only three compared outcomes of
instruction in any way. The studies were short term, looking at the outcome of
instruction for the year they were employed. They tended to use nonconventional
means for assessing reading ability. Overall, they found little or no advantage for
whole language compared to traditional programs. The total number of students in
the combined variable and control groups for the three studies was < 200
students! This is the quality of data the whole language crowd expects parents to
accept as "research." Stephen says that the most positive thing about the whole
language classrooms she described was that each teacher "behaved as if the
desired were actual." Each teacher "believed - - and was observed behaving as if -
- the students were competent, sensible, and well-intentioned." Do you remember
when Harold Hill in the Music Man sold musical instruments to the parents of River
City for their kids? He told the parents he was teaching the kids to play by the
"think method." If you understand "the think method," then you understand whole
language. In my opinion, educators should obtain informed written consent from
parents of children upon whom they want to practice this unproven technique.
You may say that I am much too virulent in my attack on the use of a purely whole
language approach in reading instruction. After all, educators would not force
teachers to use exclusively whole language as their principal teaching method. In
fact they certainly have done so in many instances across the republic. Parents
have heard anecdotes from teachers describing their teaching phonics "on the
sly." But consider the "Reading Learner Outcomes" specified in 1992 by the
Oklahoma State Department of Education in their official Oklahoma State
Competencies, Grade One, pages 15-22:

The student attend[s] to the meaning of what is read rather than focusing on figuring out
words....Uses context, pictures, syntax, and structural analysis clues to predict meaning
of unknown words. Develops a sight vocabulary of high frequency words...Predict[s]
unknown words...Uses predictions in order to read pattern books (stories with a
repetitive element)....Uses fix-it strategies (predicts, uses pictorial cues, asks a friend,
skips the word, substitutes another meaningful word)....The student will interpret a story
from illustrations.

What is missing from this picture? The word "phonics" is nowhere to be seen. Woe be to the Oklahoma
teacher who adopts the outcome: "The student shall have phonemic awareness!" The teachers of
Oklahoma better hide their phonics worksheets. This is blatant imposition of a whole language ideology
on Oklahoma schools. Even by the twelfth grade, the Oklahoma outcomes still admonish the student
not to "focus on figuring out words." However, he must nevertheless demonstrate "a positive attitude
towards self as a reader."
The State of California, often touted as being at the vanguard of educational
innovation, implemented whole language standards in 1988. It was sold as a
package to provide a quality education for all its students, including its "diverse
learners." California's DPI audited the schools to ensure compliance and by 1992,
roughly 90% of the California fourth graders scored near the bottom of all states
participating in a National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) assessment
of reading (20). Stanford's Michael Kirst commented, "We almost beat Mississippi -
- but not quite. For California to say that is just devastating (21)." Proponents of
the whole language initiative then pointed to the growing number of diverse
learners to explain the state's poor performance, even though a primary purpose
of the standards in the first place was to help diverse learners. In considering
diverse learners, it should be noted that white fourth graders in California also
scored near the bottom when compared to white fourth graders across the U.S..
What was the answer of the educators promoting whole language? They said, "The
kids just need a stronger dose of whole language to fix their reading problems."
California continued to promote a whole language approach. In March,1995, the
state's own test showed that a majority of its 4th, 8th, and 10th graders failed to
reach even minimally acceptable performance levels in reading and writing (22).
Then, in April of 1995, results from the most recently administered nationally
administered NAEP reading test showed that California's 4th graders ranked last
among the 39 states that administered the test (22). Only the island territory of
Guam, where students also took the test, had worse scores. At the time this essay
was written, a proposed law requiring the state to adopt spelling books and
phonetic teaching materials is making its way through the California legislature.
The California experience clearly shows that when an idea takes hold within the
educational establishment, reference to rational methods for evaluation may be
tossed out the window.
(Return to Topics Overview)

References

1. Anderson, R.C., E.H.Hiebert, J.A. Scott, and I.A.G. Wilkinson (preparers). 1985. Becoming a Nation
of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading. Washington, D.C.. U.S. Department of
Education.
2. Bond, G.L., and R. Dysta. 1967 The cooperative research program in first grade
reading instruction. Reading Research Quarterly 2:5 - 142.
3. Shannon, P. 1983. The use of commercial reading materials in American
elementary schools. Reading Research Quarterly 19:68-85.
4. Educational Products Information Exchange. 1977. Report on a National Study
of the Nature and Quality of Instructional Materials Most Used by Teachers and
Learners. Technical Report No. 76. New York: EPIE Institute.
5. Anderson, L. 1984. The enviroment of instruction: the function of seatwork in a
commercially developed curriculum. In G.G. Duffy, L.R. Roerler, and J. Mason
(Eds.), Comprehensive Instruction: Perspectives and Suggestions. New
York:Longman, pp.93-103.
6. Davidson, J.L. (ed.) 1988. Counterpoint and Beyond: A Response to Becoming a
Nation of Readers. 1111 Kenyon Road, Urbana, Illinois: National Council of
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7. From "Mix and make." 1982. In T. Clyman and R.L. Venezky. Ginn Reading
Program (level 3, unit 2). Lexington, Massachussetts: Ginn and Co., pp.36-37.
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Bereiter, V. Anderson, L. Gurren J.D. Lebo, and J.A. Overberg. The Headway
Program (Level B1, lesson 17). LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court, p.67.
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11. Artwergen, B., C. Edelsy, and B. Flores. 1987. Whole language: what's new?
Reading Teacher 41:144-154.
12. Goodman, K., and Y. Goodman. 1981. Twenty questions about teaching
language. Educational Leadership 38:437-442.
13. Engelman S. 1992. War against the Schools' Academic Child Abuse. Portland,
Oregon: Halcyon House. 215pp.
14. Seashore, R.H., and J.C. Seegers. 1949. How large are children's vocabularies?
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15. Lorge, I., and J. Chall. 1963. Estimating the size of vocabularies of children and
adults: analysis of methodological issues. Journal of Experimental Education
32:147-157.
16. Stahl, S.A. and P.D. Miller. 1989. Whole language experience approaches for
beginning reading: a quantitative research synthesis. Review of Educational
Research 59:87-116.
17. Vellutino, F.R. 1991. Introduction to three studies on reading acquisition:
convergent findings on theoretical foundations of code-oriented versus whole-
language approaches to reading instruction. Journal of Educational Psychology
83:437-443.
18. Chall, J.S. 1983. Learning to Read: The Great Debate. Second Edition. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
19. Adams, M.J. 1990. Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print.
Cambridge, Massachussetts: the MIT Press.
20. Education Week. September 22, 1993.
21. Kist, MN. October 27, 1993. The Oregonian .
22. Witt, H. May 14, 1995. Bad grades for new age education: low scores may lead
California back to old teaching methods. The Chicago Tribune.
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