"Whole Language" Called A Whole Flop

In a controversy-prone profession, a teaching method called "whole language" has become the latest lightning-rod for criticism. Critics say it reminds them of prior failed educational experiments such as the "New Math" and "classrooms without walls."

Whole language teaching rejects the phonics method. Children are encouraged to learn to read without initial concern for the rules of spelling and grammar. (Example: If a kid spells "elephant" "elifant" it's ok as long as he's having fun.) Phonics, on the other hand, relies upon sound-it-out exercises in teaching children to read, write and spell. Phonics supporters decry whole language as an erosion of standards and discipline -- and the main cause behind schools turning out students who can't read or write.

Substantial numbers of parents whose children have been taught through whole language systems say the children misspell words, misuse grammar, can't punctuate and don't like the dictionary.

Critics cite a story written by a whole language-taught first-grader who wrote "way" for "why," "cook" for "clock," "sawool" for "school" and "wano" for "want." Whole language proponents counter that phonics is boring and "inventive" spelling allows kids to be creative.

• In a recent survey by the National Association of State Boards of Education and Scholastic, Inc., about 80 percent of parents blamed a lack of phonics for their children's reading problems.

• In California -- where phonics is all but ignored in favor of whole language -- students are tied with those in Louisiana for the worst fourth-grade reading skills in the nation.

• The Illinois Superintendent of Schools has blamed "unbalanced" whole language instruction for a third-straight drop in reading scores among the state's grammar-school students.

Consequently, organized back-to-phonics movements have sprung up in a number of states -- including North Carolina, Ohio and Texas, and California where in a dramatic turn around the whole language bastion has allocated $200 million for phonics textbooks and teacher retraining.

Source: Christina Duff, "How Whole Language Became a Hot Potato In and Out of Academia," Wall Street Journal, October 30, 1996.