z46\doc\web\2000\10\phonstan.txt
Whole Language Lives On: The Illusion of Balanced
Literacy
http://www.edexcellence.net/library/wholelang/moats.html
by Dr. Louisa Cook Moats


Even now, reading education professors in the U.S.
continue to rail against
education policies that impose constraints or
directives ("mandates") about
curriculum or methods, complaining that the loss of
control by classroom
teachers over what they do in their classes is a
threat to both democracy
and professionalism. In the climate perpetuated by
such rhetoric, teachers'
incentives to collaborate, to replicate best
practices, or to study research
are diminished.


Confronting and changing the legacy of whole language
is a mission yet to be
accomplished. Righting reading instruction calls for
continuing effort on
eight separate fronts:


Every state should have language-arts content
standards and curricular
frameworks for each grade from kindergarten through
third grade. These
should be explicitly based on research findings on
phonemic awareness,
alphabetic skills, reading fluency, beginning and
advanced decoding skills,
vocabulary, and comprehension. California and Texas
have done especially
well in this regard and should be emulated-but even
they need to ensure that
practice follows policy.


State assessments of reading and language arts should
be calibrated to show
the effects of reading instruction as delineated in
well-written state
standards.


State accountability systems should emphasize the
attainment of
grade-appropriate reading, spelling, and writing
skills by third grade, so
that actions can be taken quickly to (a) provide
meaningful and effective
remediation to the students who have fallen by the
wayside; and (b)
reorganize or disband failing schools or provide
parents with alternative
placements for their children. To this end, the
efforts of states such as
Texas and Virginia to develop a valid screening tool
for reading in grades
K-2 are laudable.


States should adopt rigorous licensing examinations
for new teachers and
veteran teachers alike. States must be clear and
specific in their
delineation of research-based practice, so that little
incentive remains for
the perpetuation of unsupported ideas such as those of
whole language.
Knowledge of reading development, language structure,
reading pedagogy, and
assessments would seem minimally necessary for
effective, informed
instruction. Licensing exams should probe actual
mastery of specific
components of reading instruction. Classroom practices
at the school level
should be based on best practice and be open to
independent review by others
who are knowledgeable about the issues.


Because state university reading departments have been
the slowest to change
and the most tenaciously loyal to whole-language
ideology, alternative
teacher-preparation programs should be encouraged and
supported. If
disillusioned consumers are able to look elsewhere for
teachers who can pass
a licensing exam and demonstrate their competence with
students, entrenched
academic departments may feel more pressure to
improve.


Traditional schools and programs of education should
be organized
differently. Professional preparation of effective
teachers should be their
focus. Faculty tenure would be abolished. Faculty
would maintain positions
if they could successfully collaborate with a team in
the preparation of
competent teachers. Professional schools for teaching
would be partners with
departments of core disciplines including linguistics
and psychology.
Faculty members would be eligible for their role if
they themselves had been
successful practitioners in K-12 classrooms.


State-guided textbook adoptions should be regulated
according to the
alignment of the material with research evidence for
what works best.
Publishers should be required to show for whom their
product works and under
what conditions.


Journalists and policymakers need to untie the string
and closely examine
the innards of instructional programs and packages
that are offered in the
name of "balanced" reading.
What children bring to the printed page, and to the
task of writing, is
knowledge of spoken language. What must be learned is
knowledge of the
written symbols that represent speech, and the ability
to use those
productively. Knowing the difference between sacks and
sax, past and passed,
or their and there, or knowing that antique says
"anteek," requires language
awareness and attention to detail. Students who are
not taught properly are
less able to sound out a new word when it is
encountered, slower and less
accurate at reading whole words, less able to spell,
less able to interpret
punctuation and sentence meaning, and less able to
learn new vocabulary
words from reading them in context. Students deserve
to have sufficient
understanding of the language they speak, read, and
write so that they can
use it to communicate well. Ironically, whole language
has stood in the way
of this accomplishment for many years. Today, its
influence is still with
us. If sufficient attention is promptly given to
changes such as those
outlined above, tomorrow may yet be a different story.






=====
Lisa A. Leppin
The Classical Tutor
936 Clarendon Avenue
Mukwonago, Wisconsin  53149
262.363.4788
http://www1.wcf.net/~tutor/ClassicalTutor.htm
-Time Tested Teaching, Superior Results