What is the theoretical background to WL?
The “whole language” (WL) movement doubtless has some good points, particularly encouraging children to write at an earlier age. Its admirable goal is to rescue children from doing endless worksheets while never writing or reading a real story. But “whole language,” as it trickles down to public schools, is one more example of how useful ideas developed by theoreticians get bollixed up by public classroom schools. Moreover, it has often become a subterfuge for putting look-say word guessing back into top position in reading instruction. It’s dismaying to see many parents comment that their children taught by phonics methods learned to read just fine but that their later children don’t learn to read under “whole language” programs, which usually from the descriptions don’t even sound like true WL programs. Frank Smith, a British-Australian former journalist who later studied and taught about reading in North American universities, is one author cited frequently in WL circles.
