by Dr. Patrick Groff
NRRF Board Member & Senior Advisor

Dr. Patrick Groff, Professor of Education Emeritus San Diego State University, has published over 325 books, monographs, and journal articles and is a nationally known expert in the field of reading instruction.

The relevant experimental research consistently has indicated that the "Whole Language" (WL) approach to the development of children's reading is relatively ineffectual. This failure of WL is due by and large to its guiding principle, i.e., that children best learn to read in school in the same way they learn to speak at home, as preschoolers. Advocates of WL wrongly assume, however, that learning to read and to speak are the same processes. In truth, they are distinctly different linguistic phenomena, the empirical research denotes.

To avoid further negative criticism of the failings of WL that it so far has attracted, its promoters have shifted to the use of alternative terms when referring to it. It thus is important, for anyone concerned that WL will continue to dominate school reading programs under assumed names, to recognize what substitutions are being made for the term, WL.

There presently is a noticeable tendency by WL proponents to disguise the term, WL, with the code-word, "early, emerging, or emergent literacy." This appears to be expedient action by WL, since on the surface the latter term seems an innocuous one. No one argues, of course, that children's reading ability will not come forth, arise, or evolve as the result of effective instruction given them.

However, as are the meanings of many other terms used by WL activists, "Emergent Literacy" (EL) is given a distinctly different definition by them, than is normally attributed to it. Advocates of WL employ the term, EL, as what they believe is proof that the guiding principle of WL (given above) is a valid one. As presented in WL, EL refers to the idea that from the time of their birth children are engaging themselves in learning to read (in the supposed same fashion that they actually are learning to speak).

However, this is a reasonable conclusion only if one accepts the WL notion that learning to speak and to read are the same process. Since the two linguistic processes in fact are radically different, the attempt by WL to offer EL (as they describe it) as proof that WL is theoretically sound, fails badly.

Contradicting the WL position on this matter is the evidence that learning to speak is done effortlessly and unconsciously by all peoples. Then, while speaking goes back to the dawn of mankind, writing systems are a relatively recent invention. It thus is no historical accident that almost all children in the world learn to speak with no conscious effort, while about 50 percent of America's young adults are "functionally illiterate," according to the latest U.S. Dept. of Education statistics.

It thus is correct to classify learning to speak as an instinctual act, one much like learning to walk. Children therefore learn to speak without any conscious awareness that they are uttering a series of speech sounds called words, that a sequence of spoken words makes up a sentence, or that optical shapes called letters are used to represent in writing these speech sounds and spoken words. Preschool children typically do not learn this information about written language in a "natural" way, as WL advocates claim.

Instead, as the academic field, called cognitive science, now clearly reveals, learning to speak in no way prepares the child to recognize written words. Children gain nothing from learning to speak that helps them decode written words (i.e., how to translate written words into their spoken equivalents). This explains why it is found that direct and systematic instruction of children's conscious awareness of speech sounds in spoken words is a vitally necessary first step in teaching them to read.

This decoding of written words (called the application of phonics information, which extremely few preschool children "naturally" acquire by their own informal efforts) is essential if children are to learn to read proficiently, the experimental research emphasizes. Nothing relates more closely to children's reading comprehension, it is found, then their ability to recognize words quickly and accurately. And, nothing develops this automatic word recognition better than does direct and systematic teaching of phonics information.

We thus must not allow the WL movement to attempt to obscure this empirical evidence about how reading instruction is best conducted by diverting our attention from it through their use of the term, EL. Whenever the term, EL, is seen or heard in any written or spoken remarks on reading instruction, it therefore is wise to translate it as WL. The two terms, EL and WL are exchangeable, it turns out. They are duplicate versions of the same discredited version of how children best learn to read.

BR31

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