Whole Language--A View of the Past

When I first started teaching 20 years ago, the big rage in methodology was Whole Language. The Whole Language technique was a method of teaching reading that was originally borrowed from New Zealand, the country with the highest literacy rate in the world at that time. It involved teaching with the 'Whole' child in mind, and focusing on the 'Whole' literacy process. Instead of picking language apart into minute components such as consonants, vowels, and grammatical details FIRST, it began with enjoyment of the reading process, and introduced real literature first to extract the phonics skills AFTER the child had become accustomed to reading whole words from whole text. In short, it was a method based on the natural joy of literature which bolstered a child's desire to read and gave them confidence in the written word before anyone thought about getting down to the nitty gritty of mechanics. Whole Language built on the concept that the human brain synthesizes information in Wholes rather than Parts, and that successful retention could not take place until each skill was embedded in a much larger, more meaningful context. Lifelong readers could not be built without a favorable view toward the reading process from the beginning, and you could not isolate skills on a daily basis without losing all sense of purpose, motivation, and retention for the child in the future.

Whole Language was the main reason I got into teaching. I still believe that it was the single most child-centered learning approach that the public schools had every attempted, however it was a short lived 'fad' in reality because it had the disadvantage of requiring faith in the child's ability to learn, it did not produce instantaneous, measurable results (emphasizing process over product at all times), and it did not fit neatly into educational plans and instructional curriculums. WL required teachers to research and create their own units (often based on needs and interests of the children themselves), and it required the ability to shift gears quickly and an unusual amount of creativity on behalf of the teacher. In other words, it reflected the true nature of a child and the zigzag fluctuations that the path of a learner always takes. In hindsight, there was no way that an approach this radical could have survived when it came down to it. Big bureaucracies demand evaluation at every turn and house teachers who favor long-term structure over child-led curriculum, and I don't see that changing anytime soon:(.

There are several techniques in the Whole Language philosophy that coincide extremely well with the ideas of homeschooling and child-led education. The following are a couple of ideas that have long been forgotten in the world of hard-core phonics and skills based instruction, but they are still effective today and (in my view) far superior to those that are employed in modern schools:

1) Stimulating, learner based environments. The presence of books and reading materials of every description pervaded real WL classrooms. Art supplies, math manipulatives, toys, writing implements, paper, and environments decorated entirely with homemade materials of the child's making were key. No child-based classroom ever had teaching aids of the type one always sees in teacher-stores and catalogs (factory made bulletin board kits, pre-fab signs and decorations, etc.) All of these objects did nothing but convey to the children that the teacher was in charge of the learning process, not them. WL classrooms emphasized the work of the children who 'lived' and learned there, and valued them. While a few pre-printed aids such as alphabet and number lines could be glimpsed here and there, the majority of the room was always covered in the childs' creations. Indeed, some teachers had nothing to do with decor of the rooms at all, it was all done by the children themselves in whatever way they saw fit to make the environment happy and comfortable.

2) Skills learned within the context of Whole books, Whole concepts, and Whole themes. Skills are best learned when they are not isolated from the context in which they originally appear. For ex, the 'th' consonant blend is best learned when it is encountered in a repetitive, interesting story filled with examples of the 'th' combination. Fractions are best introduced in the context of cooking and measuring ingredients where they have real world applications. Dates and events in history are best learned as part of the larger historical events to which they belong, and the Parts of a Plant are best learned in the context of the outdoor investigations that come naturally to children of all ages. According to the WL Philosophy there is no reason to take a skill out of context EVER, and part of the success of the method in New Zealand relied heavily on connecting all activities to a larger whole that made sense and was instigated by the children themselves 90% of the time;

3) Modeling. Another important tenet of the WL Language philosophy involved modeling the reading/writing process to children. Modeling meant that kids could get to see adult writers making mistakes and rethinking their ideas, becoming interested in reading for it's own sake and not just for the sake of encouraging it in children. It was critical for kids to see adults as fallible in other words (something that is seldom allowed for in classrooms today).

4) One-to-One Time and Attention. Whole Language also involved an inordinate amount of face to face contact and time devoted to each individual in the learning program. Time was spent talking and reviewing what the child was working on, discussing the child's interests and asking the child what they thought, and what the next step should be in their development that day/week/month. The opinion of the child was a major factor in their own progress, and negativity was actively discouraged at all times.

5) The Mini-Lesson. Whole Language teachers made efficient use of a concept known as the 'Mini Lesson'. This was a short lesson (usually 10-15 minutes in length) that introduced or reviewed a specific concept in Math or Reading, which then led to hands-on experimentation with manipulatives or games to reinforce the IDEA behind the concept. As most people know, the aim of instruction today revolves around endless repetition of a skill until the solution grinds itself into the consciousness of the child and temporarily boosts test scores. The only problem with this method of repetitive practice (or kill and drill, as the case may be) is that research has shown that retention does NOT improve past a certain point, and that the vast majority of children utterly despise the practice, making it less likely than ever that they will associate joy with learning:(.


There were many interesting concepts in the practice of Whole Language that unfortunately live on only in dated books and articles (at least in this country). Though the homeschool setting is different from the environment for which this method was originally designed, many of the principles align themselves perfectly with what unschoolers and freeschoolers believe (the ideas of child-empowerment, holistic learning, confidence, participation in the learning process, and emotional well-being). Someday the public schools may wake up to the idea that children are people and treat them accordingly, but until then it will be up to the mavericks among us to uphold principles that keep their spirits intact and continue methods that were tried and could have worked had they not existed in a vacuum of compulsion and austerity.

Til next time,
Anonymom:)