#whole language

[principleofplenitude]

By the early 1990s, the idea that kids didn't need phonics had taken hold in many schools and teacher preparation programs, and was even a guiding principle behind reading instruction across the entire state of California. But the phonics folks kept pushing back. The battle between whole language and phonics got so heated that the U.S. Congress eventually got involved, convening a National Reading Panel to review all the research on reading. In 2000, the panel released a report. The sum of the research showed that explicitly teaching children the relationship between sounds and letters improved reading achievement. The panel concluded that phonics lessons help kids become better readers. There is no evidence to say the same about whole language.

“Hard Words“ from APM Reports

[allthingslinguistic]

When you talk to whole language proponents, it's clear pretty quickly that the distrust of phonics instruction is motivated by a fear that reading will be reduced to rote and boring phonics drills. One of the reasons whole language flourished in the 1970s and '80s is that it rejected the idea that children should sit quietly in rows listening to a teacher direct a lesson. "In whole language, the battle was seen as, 'Are you in favor of literacy or are you in favor of skills?'" Seidenberg said. He said no one is advocating for rote and boring lessons. But the science shows clearly that when reading instruction is organized around a defined progression of concepts about how speech is represented by print, kids become better readers. There is also widespread support in the research for the effectiveness of teacher-directed lessons as opposed to letting children discover key concepts about reading on their own. What's also clear in the research is that phonics isn't enough. Children can learn to decode words without knowing what the words mean. To comprehend what they're reading, kids need a good vocabulary, too. That's why reading to kids and surrounding them with quality books is a good idea. The whole language proponents are right about that. But, according to the research, kids who can't decode will never be good readers. Some children learn decoding quickly with minimal instruction. Others need a lot more help. But good phonics instruction is beneficial for all kids, even those who learn to decode easily; research shows they become better spellers. The belief that learning to read is a natural process that occurs when children are surrounded by books is a problem not just because there's no science to back it up. It's a problem because it assumes the primary responsibility for teaching children to read lies with families, not schools. If you're not fortunate enough to grow up in a household where there are lots of books and adults who read to you, you may be out of luck. There is no debate at this point among scientists that reading is a skill that needs to be explicitly taught by showing children the ways that sounds and letters correspond. "It's so accepted in the scientific world that if you just write another paper about these fundamental facts and submit it to a journal they won't accept it because it's considered settled science," Moats said. According to all the research, what you should see in every school is a heavy emphasis on explicit phonics instruction in the early grades. There is no evidence this turns kids off to reading or makes reading harder. In fact, it's the opposite. If you do a good job teaching phonics in the early grades, kids get off to a quicker start. "And they accelerate their progress faster and read more and like it better and so it becomes a self-reinforcing cycle," Moats said. "Whereas the converse is true. When you don't give kids insight into the code and don't arm them with insight into language, both spoken and written, what happens is, 'This is a mystery. I'm not sure I'm getting what these words really say. Therefore, I'm uncomfortable. And therefore, I don't really like it.'"

Hard Words: Why aren't kids being taught to read? 

Scientific research has shown how children learn to read and how they should be taught. But many educators don't know the science and, in some cases, actively resist it. As a result, millions of kids are being set up to fail.

[makiruz]

Conspiracy theory: whole language teaching is a deliberate psyop to make people illiterate

[principleofplenitude]

Whole language was just one of many alternative programs that were merged together into a single control condition. Specifically, the whole language interventions were combined with “balanced literacy,” “whole word” and other forms of alternative programs that included unsystematic or no phonics. The key finding from the National Reading Panel was that systematic phonics was more effective than the average performance in the control group that included various forms of reading instruction. As elementary point of logic, if you compare systematic phonics to a mixture of different alternative methods, only a subset of which are whole language, then you have not tested systematic phonics compared to whole language. More important, when Camilli et al. (2006) reanalyzed the National Reading Panel (2000) data set and directly compared systematic to unsystematic phonics (excluding studies that had no phonics, such as “whole word” interventions), the advantage for systematic phonics was greatly reduced and no longer statistically significant. This undermines the claim that systematic phonics is more effective than whole-language instruction that includes unsystematic phonics. Nevertheless, this finding has largely been ignored. The National Reading Panel has been cited will over 22,000 times, and over 2,000 times since 2017. By contrast, the Camilli et al. (2006) paper has been cited a total of 58 times, and only 9 times since 2017 (with 3 of these citations coming from us). This conceptual confusion persists. Bowers (2018) shows that every subsequent meta-analysis taken to support systematic phonics over whole language has made the same mistake of comparing systematic phonics to a mixture of different methods, or comparing systematic phonics to interventions that included no phonics. Accordingly, none of these meta-analyses should be taken to support systematic phonics over whole language. Moreover, Bowers (2018) points out a host of additional fundamental problems with these meta-analyses that further undermine this conclusion. There really is little or no empirical evidence to support the conclusion that systematic phonics is best practice. The fact that this claim is repeated thousands of times in the literature does not make it so. But it is somewhat of a scandal that the research is so consistently misrepresented in the literature. This is no victory for whole language, either. The two approaches appear to be equally good (or bad) at improving reading in schools. If you are not happy with the outcomes of whole language, you should similarly be unhappy with the outcomes of systematic phonics, and vice versa. This is the conclusion we draw, and we hope it motivates researchers and teachers to consider alternative methods of reading in the United States (where whole language is still commonplace), England (where systematic phonics has been the norm since 2006) and every other English-speaking country.

“A case for why both sides in the ‘reading wars’ debate are wrong — and a proposed solution“ from Washington Post

[bookstand]

Reading is more than sounding out words and decoding. That's why we use the whole language approach to teaching it

Reading is more than sounding out words and decoding. That’s why we use the whole language approach to teaching it

Words can say different things depending on their context. Annie Spratt/Unsplash

Katina Zammit, Western Sydney University

When I was younger I decided to learn Greek. I learnt the letter-sound correspondences and could say the words – the sounds, that is. But although I could and still can decode these words, I can’t actually read Greek because I don’t know what the words mean.

Being able…

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[remixfrostburg-blog]

Although my video didn’t turn out exactly how I would have liked, I’m proud of myself for taking the risk. I’m not very “tech savvy,” but I wanted to at least try. The point of my video is to show just how important the reading dilemma is. I wanted my audience to be educators, future educators, and those making policies in education. There is too much focus on which reading method to use and which the best is. The idea that different children learn in different ways is lost in the process. If we look at the illiteracy rates of America, it is painfully obvious that we are missing the mark in our reading education.

I wanted to open the video in a dramatic way and give the depressing statistics. I chose the video and song by Muse called “Isolated System” for two reasons. The first is that it is the theme song for the movie World War Z, so it seemed to fit The Reading War theme and secondly, because the title is called “Isolated System.” In our education system today, it seems that we want to isolate reading methods and pick just one, rather than figure out a way to collaboratively use them. I used clips from the video, because I liked the idea of the kids frantically running away. This also figuratively represents them running away from a system that is failing them.

Next, I chose to use pictures (or memes) that explain my point in an ironic way. For example, the picture that says “The government is here to discuss your level of phonetic awareness,” proves my point that the government is controlling our education system now more than ever before. Through my research, I found that our education system seems to follow what the federal government says, although they may not be the best people to make such decisions. As we all know special interests and a lack of true educational knowledge get in the way here. This is why I used the video “The Role of the Federal Government in Education.” The speaker in the video is Neal McCluskey, Associate Director of The Center for Educational Freedom. He explains how having the federal government involved in education has taken us from bad to worse and how we need to empower our communities to make education decisions that work for them. Not be forced to use mandated approaches. I also used memes that showed problems with using only the phonics approach, because I believe that we need to use a system of approaches, not just one. Phonics is a great basis for learning to read, but it is not the “be all end all” approach to reading. The video ends with the question of “Why do we have to pick just one method?” The last clip is of a skit where students debate which method to use and at the end one of the students finally figures out that it is best to use BOTH approaches, which is the point of the video.

With all of this being said, I go back to my first statement that this video is not exactly what I would have liked. I had to start by learning how to use Windows Movie Maker, which I used because it was already on my laptop, and I read that it is one of the easiest programs to

use for beginners. I did some research and found a great downloader and converter for YouTube videos, called YTD downloader, but I had a very hard time finding video clips about my topic. I found teachers teaching lessons, phonics and sight word songs, but not much on the point I was trying to make. The lack of videos on my topic caused me great frustration, but I feel I was still able to make my point.

[prokopetz]

Just when I thought the "men's rights" crowd couldn't get any more laughable, I discover that there's a vocal faction of MRAs who regard the rise of the whole language approach to literacy teaching in the middle part of the 20th Century as the vanguard of a feminist conspiracy.

Seriously? I mean, sure, the whole language approach has numerous pedagogical issues for which it may rightly be criticised, but... seriously?

Dick, Jane and Spot, instruments of male oppression?

That's like claiming you're being oppressed by Grover from Sesame Street.

Honestly.

[drbseducationworld]

May I introduce to all of you ... LISA DELPIT?