[NLA] Blame "whole language?" Nonsense!

[AWilder106@aol.com]

Tom,

I wonder if you have actually read any of the original work on whole languge. 
 I am certainly not going to deny that there is a lot of dreck written about 
whole language by, probably, a lot of idiots, or people who didn't know 
better at the time, or those who wanted to step into a spotlight, any 
spotlight.  And I know exactly what I am stepping into when I talk about it.  
Textbooks don't help, they are made for a mass market and peddled to take 
advantage of the latest fashion in anything.  Just look at those 10 years 
old, say, and see what I mean.

"Phonics" is also responsible for a lot of ridiculous materials, and they 
sell like hotcakes because they are the fashion of the times.

In academic cricles, time tends to show what can be tossed out and what kept, 
where the best path lies. It's cumulative, I write as an academic. I cited 
the example of the videotape "Together We Bloom" as a project that grew from 
a women's literacy program. The use of "realia," real world materials, comes 
from this tradition--newspapers, children's books, tickets, menus, game 
directions, machinery instructions, food labels, job applications, examples 
of print that people actually use and read in everyday lives.  These 
materials reasonably can be used in an adult literacy classroom--these are 
the things that people come to class wanting to be able to read.  I worked on 
a project where we went into people's homes to find out what they actually 
read, how they used print, and how their literacy practices had changed with 
instruction.  Seems solid to me.

I know phonics is your thing. 

 I think that we should cast as wide a net as possible to find out what is 
****useful***** in the adult literacy classroom.  If a person comes to class 
wanting as a goal to be able to read a storybook to a child, why shouldn't 
that be used as a text?  Many useful exercises could spin off from this goal 
and support the goal at the same time.  I don't expect any advocate to use 
the phrase "whole langauge," they would be run out of town on a rail, look at 
your reaction, for heaven's sake!  

Andrea
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