Whole language is a philosophy of reading and a discredited[8] educational method originally developed for teaching literacy in English to young children.
[13] The scientific consensus is that whole-language-based methods of reading instruction (e.g., teaching children to use context cues to guess the meaning of a printed word)[11][6][4] are not as effective as phonics-based approaches.
[19] Yetta Goodman has also cited the contributions of Dewey, Vygotsky, Rosenblatt, and Ashton Warner, among other writers, in the development of the whole language movement.
This dates back to the theories of John Amos Comenius, who first pushed for education to move away from dull rote learning.
This also reflects a fundamental element of the concern voiced by many educators over the use of pure phonics and the positivist view that you can accurately measure the development of reading sub-skills.
[citation needed] Gregory Shafer, a professor of English at Mott Community College, has claimed that "the seeds" of the whole language movement were "firmly rooted" in the theories of linguist Noam Chomsky.
"So focused is reading on making sense that the visual input, the perceptions we form, and the syntactic patterns we assign are all directed by our meaning construction.
The meaning people bring to the reading is available to them through every cuing system, but it's particularly influential as we move from our sense of the syntactic patterns to the semantic structures.
Like all the cuing systems, syntax provides the possibility of correct prediction when trying to make sense or meaning of written language.
Goodman notes the cues found in the flow of language are:[38] The pragmatic system is also involved in the construction of meaning while reading.
"While different materials may share common semantic, syntactic, and graphophonic features, each genre has its own organization and each requires certain experiences by the reader.
This led to the idea that reading and writing were concepts that should be considered as wholes, learned by experience and exposure more than analysis and didactic instruction.
All experimental research shows that reading, unlike language in the Chomskyan view, is not a pre-programmed human skill; it must be learned.
Instruction in embedded phonics typically emphasizes the consonants and the short vowels, as well as letter combinations called rimes or phonograms.
Theorists such as Ken Goodman and Frank Smith at that time advocated a "guessing game" approach, entirely based on context and whole-word analysis.
It is worth noting that neuroscientist Mark Seidenberg, one of the many critics of whole language and Balance Literacy, writes that Ken Goodman's "guessing game theory" had no supporting evidence and "was grievously wrong".
[65] Despite these results, many whole language advocates continue to argue that their approach, including embedded phonics, has been shown to improve student achievement.
On the other hand, some parents and teachers have objected to the de-emphasis of phonics in whole-language based curricula (such as Reading Recovery) and have advocated for the removal of whole language from schools.
[71][72] One neuroscientist, Mark Seidenberg, says "Goodman's guessing game theory was grievously wrong" and "the impact was enormous and continues to be felt".
He is also especially critical of Smith's book, Reading Without Nonsense, which suggests the following recommendation to help a struggling reader: "The first alternative and preference is to skip over the puzzling word.
"[75] In 2015, Jack Silva, the chief academic officer for Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, discovered that a lot of students in his district were struggling with reading.
In response, the Bethlehem district invested approximately $3 million on training, materials, and support to help its early elementary teachers and principals learn the science of how reading works and how children should be taught, focusing on phonics instruction.
[76] While rancor continues, much of whole language's emphasis on quality literature, cultural diversity, and reading in groups and to students is widely supported by the educational community due to its benefits of increased comprehension.
[77] The importance of motivation, long a central focus of whole-language approaches, has gained more attention in the broader educational community in the last few years.
[79] Moats contends that the principles essential to whole language, and those that render it ineffective and unfit for reading education are: a) children learn to read from exposure to print, b) hostility to drilling in phonics and other forms of direct instruction, and c) the tendency to endorse the use of context-clues and guesswork to decipher a word rather than phonemic decoding.
Since 1996, "balanced literacy" has been suggested as an integrative approach, portrayed by its advocates as taking the best elements of both whole language and code-emphasizing phonics, something promoted by Adams in 1990.
[82] In 2014, the department stated, "Ensuring that children know how to decode regularly spelled one-syllable words by mid-first grade is crucial".
[70] Other states, such as Ohio, Colorado, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Arkansas are continuing to emphasize the need for instruction in evidenced-based phonics.
[95] Neuroscientist Mark Seidenberg, a proponent of the science of reading and the teaching of phonics, writes that, "Balanced literacy allowed educators to declare an end to the increasingly troublesome 'wars' without resolving the underlying issues", and that "Balanced literacy provided little guidance for teachers who thought that phonics was a cause of poor reading and did not know how to teach it".
[101] Widely known whole-language critics include Rudolf Flesch, Louisa Cook Moats,[102] G. Reid Lyon,[103] James M. Kauffman,[104] Phillip Gough (co-creator of the Simple view of reading),[105] Keith Stanovich, Diane McGuinness, Steven Pinker,[106][107] David C. Geary,[108] Douglas Carnine,[109][110] Edward Kame'enui,[111] Jerry Silbert,[112] Lynn Melby Gordon, Diane Ravitch, Jeanne Chall,[113] Emily Hanford,[114] Jordan Peterson,[115][116] Mark Seidenberg,[117] and Stanislas Dehaene.