Aside from the obvious illogic of the above statements, it is difficult
to see how this could be called phonics by anyone even remotely familiar
with the method. However, the statements are consistent with the whole
language belief system. Simply hearing others read and following along
while reading activities are "modeled" will lead children to
develop the ability to read. The purpose of reading must be to "construct"
meaning from the print, pictures, diagrams and whatever "context clues"
the child can find. Phonemic awareness for every student is not essential.
It is of no concern, if each child derives a completely different meaning
from the same text. Advocates point to research done in linguistics and
psycholiguistics to back their claims. Psycholinguistics is a relatively
new branch of science which studies the psychology and physical development
of oral language in young children. It does not deal in any direct way
with reading acquisition.
Whole language advocates do not believe that phonics should be taught
through "skill and drill". Phonics and related skills are supposed
to be learned by the child in the context of actual reading and writing.
The teacher is expected to intrude only minimally into this process of
discovery, at most waiting for the occasional "teachable moment"
to pass along reading tips. Goodman says, "One cannot reconcile direct
instruction with natural learning." He argues that skillful reading
involves getting meaning largely from the context of the entire passage,
rather than reading word by word. By sampling words and parts of words,
readers engage in a "psycholinguistic guessing game" that enables
them to predict the words they'll encounter. Sounding out words plays only
a small role, because it's too cumbersome for the human mind to process
every letter of every word.
There is little evidence to back up the whole language advocates' claims.
Robert Slavin, a co-director of the Center for Research on Education of
Students Placed at Risk, at Johns Hopkins University is a highly respected
educational researcher. He is concerned that whole language methods, when
used to the exclusion of other approaches, will deprive children, 
articularly
low-income and minority children, of the intensive instruction in phonics
that they need to improve their oral language and master reading. He is
quoted as saying "The widespread rush into whole language could have
real dangers for certain types of kids, and it's scary to me". Slavin
has found during his research that minority and children from poor home
environments benefit the most from a structured academic environment.
Further evidence that the approach is not effective and that it's underlying
premises are flawed is mounting in other countries. Citizen groups in Canada
and England have attacked whole language as the cause for falling test
scores and lowered literacy. In 1992, the British education secretary called
for a return to instruction in basic skills following an advisory panel's
report that derided the method as "foolish and often leading to poor
results". The educational research comparing whole language with phonics
based approaches is small and of poor quality. A 1989 overview paper in
the "Review of Educational Research" found that research on whole-language
and on its predecessor, the whole-word approach, produced worse results
in reading comprehension than traditional phonic methods. The results were
significantly worse among disadvantaged students.
New scientific research has revealed that good readers do not employ
the "strategies" advocated in whole language. Good readers have
been found to read virtually every word and every letter of the texts they
encounter. This was discovered during computer-monitored eye-movement 
esearch
experiments conducted by Keith Rayner of the University of Massachussetts.
Skilled readers were observed to breeze through texts effortlessly, because
their knowledge of phonics made word recognition automatic. This freed
their minds to focus on comprehension.
Philip Gough of the University of Texas, conducted another experiment
to test the effectiveness of word-guessing as a reading strategy. Using
skilled readers, he had them read text in which meaningful words were 
intentionally
omitted. He found that even skilled readers could correctly guess no more
than one in four of the missing words. In fact, when poor readers were
tested using the same text, they performed as well as the good readers.
This strategy had the effect of making good readers and poor readers look
the same. Neither group was able to accurately comprehend the text being
read. From this experiment, the "word-guessing" strategy appears
to be a very poor method to use when reading for accuracy and meaning.
Accuracy is essential for technical reading in any academic field.
Whole language's emphasis on context was also undermined when the "Journal
of Educational Psychology" published a study challenging the oft-cited
1965 experiment conducted by Ken Goodman. In the original experiment, he
had found that children made 60 to 80 percent more errors when reading
words out of context than when reading them in context. However, those
who repeated the experiment determined that Goodman had failed to distinguish
properly between good and poor readers. It was only the younger and poorer
readers who made significantly more errors reading words out of context.
Good readers were able to read words well whether in or out of context.
Goodman had used only poor readers in his experiment and had no control
group. Dr. Jeanne Chall of Harvard University has demonstrated that two
powerful predictors of future reading success are a knowledge of the alphabet
and an awareness of the speech sounds that make up words. These are the
very skills most lacking in disadvantaged students when they enter elementary
school.
(continued....)
Chuck Beams
Fidonet - 1:2608/70
cbeams@future.dreamscape.com
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