Hi Charles, 
 I have noted your writings about whole language and I'd like to take up a 
 couple of points.
 As far as I am aware Whole Language or the Languge Experience approach was 
 never intended to be an unsupported way of teaching children to read and 
 write. When I was at Uni 1980-82, the emphasis was on processes and 
 certainly cueing. (eg Ann Pulvertaft Carry on Reading, Carry on Writing.)
 The move was away from "Here is Nip. See Nip run." and the stilted style of 
 phonic based programs that I grew up with. Five years olds are discerning 
 readers. Good readers and literature are essential. (Australian Reading 
 Council/Associaton. Primary English Teachers assoc. Brian Cambourbe etc 
 etc etc) 
 CB> "Inventive spelling" shouldn't be allowed past mid-first grade; 
 No! We have just gone past mid-year and I have spent the whole year trying 
 to encourage the telling of stories. I teach in a lower socio-economic area
 and while I think there is a general trend away from conversation - oral 
 language - in society in general, the concept of putting a message on paper 
 is far more essential than worrying about spelling. Generally 5 and 6 years 
 olds are far more concerned about spelling that teachers BUT what is the 
 point of learning to write if you have no ideas to communicate. So we do 
 lots of story telling (I hate show and tell!) and discuss using our 
 imagination. THEN once the children have published a few stories and they 
 are their own reward, we start to encourage spelling. We get excited when 
 they write I wt t th shp. THEN we point out the letters they get right and 
 tell them things like - you've just missed the o out of shop. Try and 
 remember that next time. Encouraging, encouraging, encouraging. Writing is 
 hard and why, if you are five, would you want to go out to the teacher and 
 let them tell you all the wrong bits because in year 1 there will be more 
 wrong bits than right. 
 
 CB> children's misspellings should be corrected so erroneous patterns are 
 not reinforced."
 Absolutely but there are is a fine line between correction and breaking 
 their enthusiasm. I tend to put a tick above the letters that are correct 
 and add the letters which have been left out while the child is there and 
 discussing their story. This is called conferencing. I also teach a list 
 of the most common words (Dolch or Fry etc) and have them up on the notice 
 board along with other word banks. How to you account for the 
 inconsistencies of the English language and all the borrowings?
 
 CB> "Advocates point to research done in linguistics and psycholinguistics
 CB> to back their claims. Psycholinguistics is a relatively new branch of 
 CB> science which studies the psychology and physical development of oral 
 CB> language in young children. It does not deal in any direct way with 
 CB> reading acquisition."
 I have studied linguistics at university. I found it very clinical and of 
 no practical use to my ability to teach children to read. It was an adjunct 
 to my understanding of languages, syntax, semantics, and most importantly   
 morphology and phonEMics and I am glad of the opputunity to study it. The 
 reason I did not take it any further was its clinical nature.
                                                              
 CB> "Essentially this letter (referring to the same letter mentioned in an
 CB> earlier message written by 40 professors and doctors - CB) states that
 CB> there is no scientific basis in linguistics or psycholinguistics to 
 CB> support a non-phonics whole language approach. It should be noted that
 I venture to think though the leaning of the linguists would be towards a 
 phonemic approach rather than a phonic approach. There is an essential 
 difference. a says a but not all the time (eg g and j; s, k and c; y, w 
 and all the vowels etc etc). Morphology would also be encouraged by them
 eg cat is one but cats is two, he is male but she is female etc. 
 
 English as a language is a living, breathing thing and unlike other 
 protected languages changes from location to location and has changed 
 considerably over the centuries. 
 Many people forget that the good readers are always going to have little 
 difficulty and that the ones who struggle will do so no matter what method
 is used to attempt to teach them to read. I guess that is why people like 
 Maire Clay, Libby Handy et al were attempting to use good literatyure to 
 tempt those fussy readers in from the cold.
 To me its all swings and round abouts. Give those children every opportunity 
 to become a reader and then don't stomp on their enthusiasm when they think, 
 like the little engine, that they can do it.
 Regards, 
 Erica.
... A word is worth .001 of a picture                  ...
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12
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