Whole-Language, the reading equivalent of Everyday Math

As promised in the last post, here is the scoop on the problem with reading instruction.

The following information is from Louisa Moats’ report Whole-Language High Jinks, How to Tell When “Scientifically-Based Reading Instruction” Isn’t (2007)

“For more than three decades, advocates of “whole-language” instruction have argued––to the delight of many teachers and public school administrators––that learning to read is a “natural” process for children. Create reading centers in classrooms; put good, fun books in children’s hands and allow them to explore; then encourage them to “read,” even if they can’t make heads or tails of the words on the page. Eventually, they’ll get it. So say the believers.

But students aren’t “getting it.” By almost any measure, U.S. reading scores have been too low for too long. Consider the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Since 1992, its results for reading by fourth and eighth graders have been almost uniformly bleak. Among fourth graders, just 31 percent of students in 2005 rated proficient or better. That’s just two points higher than in 1992. The exact same scores were recorded by eighth graders over the same time span.

This comes as no surprise to scientists who have spent decades studying how children learn to read. They’ve established that most students will learn to read adequately (though not necessarily well) regardless of the instructional methods they’re subjected to in school. But they’ve also found that fully 40 percent of children are less fortunate. For them, explicit instruction (including phonics) is necessary if they are to ever become capable readers. These findings are true across race, socioeconomic status, and family background.”

So reading is another area where educators trained by the education schools to believe in the “natural” methods of learning that are harming kids who desperately need science based instruction to learn to read. Moats isn’t the only one to criticize the whole language approach. E.D. Hirsch in his book The Knowledge Deficit points out the same problem. Since it is important to recognize that the label describing these harmful practices has been changed from Whole Language due to the bad press given them under that title, we need to understand the “relabeling” that has taken place.

“Although the term “whole language” is rarely used today, programs based on its premises, such as Reading Recovery, Four Blocks, Guided Reading, and especially “balanced literacy,” are as popular as ever. These approaches may pay lip service to reading science, but they fail to incorporate the content and instructional methods proven to work best with students learning to read. Some districts, such as Denver, openly shun research-based practices, while others, such as Chicago, fail to provide clear, consistent leadership for principals and teachers, who are left to reinvent reading instruction, school by school.”

“[Moats] suggests ways of separating the wheat from the chaff and explains that good reading programs

• use valid screening measures to find children who are at risk and provide them with effective, early instruction in phonology and oral language; in word recognition and reading fluency; and in comprehension and writing skills;
• interweave several components of language (such as speech sounds, word structure, word meaning, and sentence structure) into the same lessons;
• build fluency in both underlying reading skills and text reading, using direct methods such as repeated readings of the same text;
• incorporate phonemic awareness into all reading instruction, rather than treating it as an isolated element;
• go beyond the notion of phonics as the simple relationship between letters and sounds to include lessons on word structure and origins;
• build vocabulary from the earliest levels by exposing students to a broad, rich curriculum; and support reading comprehension by focusing on a deep understanding of topic and theme rather than just a set of strategies and gimmicks.

Identified and taught properly using scientifically-based reading research (SBRR) programs, students at risk of reading failure actually have good prospects for success.”

“Despite the scientific evidence, despite the flat-line reading scores on NAEP (and the SAT verbal section), many teachers and school systems continue to embrace whole-language approaches. In this report, one of America’s foremost reading experts, Louisa Moats, shows how whole-language reading programs have survived, even thrived, mostly by claiming to be aligned with SBRR strategies even when they are not.”

“Few people are better qualified to make this judgment than Moats. She earned her Ed.D. in Reading and Human Development from Harvard University in 1982 after teaching in public and private elementary school settings. For 15 years, she was a licensed psychologist with extensive experience working directly with children with reading problems. In 1996-97, she served as advisor to the California Reading Initiative, and later co-directed a large, federally funded research project on reading instruction in high poverty schools. Currently she writes professional development courses for teachers and directs research projects with Sopris West Educational Services. Her list of publications is extensive, including several books. Her articles have been published in journals as diverse as Annals of Dyslexia, American Educator, the Journal of Child Neurology, Nature Neuroscience, and Reading and Writing. She has taught courses at
Harvard University, Dartmouth College, Dartmouth Medical School, and Saint Michael’s College.”

“The concept of balance,” she wrote, “implies … that worthy ideas and practices from both Whole Language and code-emphasis approaches to reading have been successfully integrated into an eclectic mix that should go down easily with teachers and kids.” But, she explained, “it is too easy for practitioners, while endorsing ‘balance,’ to continue teaching whole language.”

Parents beware. As I stated in the Spring Loaded posting earlier, the bad stuff is too often relabeled, “new and improved” and continues to be harmful to our kids’ learning process.