Roots of the Whole-Language Movement

A Critical Commentary on Research, Politics, and Whole Language

“…Wholelanguage instruction is seen as a means for advancing a political agenda descending from earlier progressive movements in education (see Y. Goodman, 1989). They see education as a vehicle for individual liberation and the classroom as a model for an egalitarian society, in which each individual is free to develop at his or her own rate.…”

<Whole Language> as Signifier: Considering the Semantic Field of School Literacy

“…Although many avowed practitioners and supporters of <whole language> pedagogy trace the lineage of the term and their philosophy from its use by John Amos Comenius (in translation) in the 16th century through the writings of John Dewey ( Y. Goodman, 1989), widespread current use of <whole language> and its organized movements has its origins in the "miscue" research and analysis of Kenneth Goodman (1976) in the United States, in the "psycholinguistic" research of Frank Smith (1982) in Canada, and in the reading curriculums of New Zealand (Clay, 1976) and Australia (Holdaway, 1979). Beginning in the mid-1980s, a "spontaneous" grassroots movement of humanistically oriented teacher support groups and teacher-practice literacy advocates in universities throughout the United States (including the TAWL group in El Campo) came together, culminating in 1988 in a loose confederation known as the Whole Language Umbrella (Greenfield, 1993).…”

The impact of kindergarten teachers' theoretical orientation to reading on curricular planning and classroom practice in literacy.

“…Although the concepts Comenius taught do not bear close resemblance to the current definition of whole language, important characteristics about children and learning in his model tie seventeenth century educational pedagogy with whole language today (Goodman, 1989).…”

“…It involves instilling a love of literature, problem-solving and critical thinking, collaboration, authenticity, personalized learning, and much more." (Krahsen, 2002) Proponents of this approach purport students in a whole language classroom initiate learning, generate the curriculum, direct their own behavior, and evaluate the outcomes when given real opportunities for reading and writing in a natural environment (Daniels, Zemelman, & Bizar, 1999;Goodman, 1989;Goodman, 1992;Watson, 1989). Often researchers find it useful to explain practices which do not characterize whole language.…”

“…Whole language also has roots within Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, emphasizing the relationship of a student's individual learning and his or her environment and social context (Goodman, 1989;Vygotsky, 1978). Literature-based reading instruction, which encouraged students' reading of whole children's literature for discussion and writing, was used as early as the 1930s and is the immediate and somewhat overlapping predecessor to the current whole language movement (Daniels, Zemelman, & Bizar, 1999 (Goodman, 1989;Goodman, 1992).…”