by Stephany Elsworth

Created on: October 23, 2010

Whole language, an approach to reading where children learn to read by memorizing text, is ineffective for many learners. Students have a better understanding of written language if they are taught to read using a phonics-based approach.

Reading Wars: Whole Language vs. Phonics

The battle between whole language and phonics has raged in public schools for the last several decades. Advocates of whole language believe that children learn to read much like they learned to talk, by being exposed to meaningful text in childhood the way that they were exposed to spoken language during infancy. On the other hand, phonics advocates recommend a systematic, scaffolded method of teaching reading; children learn the rules of the language so that they can decode unknown words on their own.

Whole Language

The whole language approach to reading became popular during the 1980s. Rather than spending mind-numbing hours learning vowel patterns and reading dry books that contained only simple words and phrases, children were introduced to reading using whole texts. Teachers and students read the same book together over and over until the child memorized the story, and then they moved on to a different book. Students learned to read by memorization, they mastered spelling by editing their own work, and they learned the rules of phonics indirectly through discussion and practice activities.

Success Rate

Whole language operated under a terrific theory – who wants to spend hours learning rules when they can dive right in and start reading right away? The only problem was that it didn't work for all learners. The success rate of the whole language approach is clearly seen in adult literacy statistics. In 2003 approximately 14 percent of adults in the United States were classified as functionally illiterate. Some people were able to learn using the whole language method, but it was a dismal failure for at least one out of every seven learners. The statistics were even more dismal when the numbers of children were factored in. In 1998 the National Center for Educational Statistics found that approximately 40 percent of all adults and children suffered from reading problems.

Phonics Research

The phonics approach operates under two basic assumptions, according to SIL International. Most written languages have a consistent sound-to-letter correlation. Children learn the sounds made by each letter or by the letter pairs, and they read words by blending the sounds together. In 1999 Barbara

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