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 "Whole Language" (WL) approach to reading development infers remarkably different conclusions about this process from those that can be deduced from the findings of relevant experimental research. To follow are WL tenets about reading development contrasted with those that are suggested by the pertinent empirical findings:

WL Assumptions Instruction should be indirect and unsystematic. Reading skills cannot be arranged into a hierarchy of difficulty. All reading skills should be taught simultaneously. No controls over the vocabulary and sentence structure of reading materials should be made. Learning to read is the same process as learning to speak. No explicit instruction in phonological awareness (conscious awareness of speech sounds) should be given. Instruction in phonics information will handicap reading comprehension. Only teacher-constructed tests of reading should be used. Pupils should be urged to guess at the identity of written words. No intensive drill should be given on discrete reading skills. No scope or sequence chart is needed in the reading program. No lesson plans for teaching are needed. Reading comprehension is not dependent on individual word recognition. English spelling is too unpredictable for the application of phonics information to work well. Pupils should learn to recognize written words as "wholes." Enhancement of pupils' oral language skills is unnecessary. Learning of the alphabet is unnecessary. Many children are genetically indisposed to the learning of phonics information. Phonics teaching makes learning to recognize words difficult. The use of worksheets or workbooks should be avoided. Pupils should not be expected to give "right" answers as to what authors intended to convey. The findings of experimental research in reading should be abandoned. Pupils should be urged to depend heavily on context cues.

Experimental Research Findings Instruction should be direct and systematic. Reading skills can, and should be so ordered. Reading skills should be taught in the order of difficulty pupils have in learning them. Such controls should be implemented, being gradually reduced as pupils reading skills advance. These two processes are strikingly different in nature and development. The development of phonological awareness is a prerequisite to the learning of phonics information. Knowledge of phonics information correlates highly with reading comprehension. Both standardized tests and teacher-made tests should be employed. Pupils must be weaned away from this crude form of word recognition, one that able readers rarely use. Such intensive drill is necessary, and has desirable effects. Such a chart gives helpful guidance. Lesson plans are productive elements of effective reading programs. No factor in reading is more highly correlated to comprehension than is the quick and accurate recognition of individual words. The success of phonics-intensive reading programs contradicts this assumption. The use of letters as cues to word recognition is far more effective. Some pupils' learning to read is aided by such enhancement. Learning the alphabet is a prerequisite to effective word recognition. Only rarely is this the case. This teaching aids greatly in quick and accurate word recognition. When used appropriately, these materials are productive. Pupils must gain this literal comprehension in order to read critically. These findings should be respected and implemented. Able readers do not have such a dependency. The use of context cues has limited usefulness.

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