Education

Language learning battle lines drawn

Critics of the whole language approach want the more traditional phonics method used in schools.

By KELLEY TEAHEN
The London Free Press

At first glance, it's a fight about how to teach little children to read. But with closer examination, the brouhaha surrounding whole language education is nothing less than a titanic clash of political and philosophical wills.

The latest skirmish has surfaced at the London board of education, where some parents and at least one political party are giving the board failing grades for how it teaches children to read, and spell. A special public meeting on the issue is coming up Tuesday night.

In the last two years, similar clashes have occurred in the Middlesex County board of education and the London and Middlesex County Roman Catholic school board. Other pockets of concern have surfaced around Southwestern Ontario, especially in Elgin County.

This time, the political edge is out in the open. Anti-whole language talk flowed freely from taxpayer coalition candidates during the 1991 trustee elections. The latest push comes in a flyer distributed this spring by the Freedom Party of Canada.

The flyer, with the headline 'Schools Failing Our Children,' argues that the phonics system of teaching reading is superior to the whole language system now used in schools. So far, 20,000 copies have been distributed.

Robert Metz, president of the Freedom party, says parents should have a choice in how their children are educated. Offer classes using both methods and let parents choose, he says. He and Craig Stevens, who follows education issues for the London-Middlesex Taxpayers' Coalition, believe the whole language method has been pushed because ideally it requires small class sizes - which means hiring more teachers.

"Whole language instruction being used in schools today has become politicized," Stevens will admit after much prodding.

A 1990 paper by University of Western Ontario psychology professor C. H. Vanderwolf points out that support for phonics is seen "as simply one aspect of right-wing political views," a perception he says shouldn't keep schools from using phonics. which he believes is the best method of language instruction.

QUALITY:On the opposite side are professional educators like Darrel Skidmore, the London board of education's director.

"The whole language debate is one small element of two much larger issues." he says. "The first is the whole issue of quality assurance. People feel they're paying a lot if dollars for education and, therefore, they want assurance they're getting good value for the dollar.

The second, he says, is the comparison issue: how a child compares with his classmates, how a school compares with the rest of the board; how the board compares to the province, to other provinces and to schools around the world.

Mix into the equation the shifting responsibility from home to school, where schools are expected to take on everything from feeding hungry kids to teaching them how to get along with other little human beings, responsibilities once left exclusively to the home, and you have the final political picture: a social-responsibility vision of education, where every child must be encouraged, versus the best-academic-bang-for-our-buck supporters.

Called whole-to-part approach, or top-to-bottom way of teaching language:

When children learn to speak, they hear adults speaking fluently and catch on first by recognizing simple words, then learning to speak them. They learn how to put words together correctly through trial and error. Whole language teaches reading and writing skills in the same way: The children are immersed in written words - through story hours and shared reading - and then encouraged to express themselves as best they can, with correct use learned and achieved over time.

Supporters' arguments:

They say whole language is the best of all teaching worlds. "Whole language is precisely that - dealing with all elements of communications. Whole language is not a particular approach, and phonics, spelling, and vocabulary are part of the whole," said Darrel Skidmore, director, London board of education.

Detractors' arguments:

They say the method leaves many children able to read only words they have memorized, rather than being able to sound out new words. Spelling and grammar are ignored in favor of "expressiveness" and children aren't given the discipline required to master language literacy.

PHONICS METHOD

Called bottom-to-top, or part-to-whole approach:

Children learn the sound of letters, then sound out words, learn grammar rules and then progress to reading and writing sentences. Children learn to read from "readers," made up of stories using words that clearly follow phonics rules.

Supporters' arguments:

They call it "teacher-proof" (because step-by-step instructions are prescribed in textbooks), disciplined, and a system where progress is easily measurable.

Detractors' arguments:

They say phonics may teach the sound of words but not meanings. A child isn't encouraged to write or develop a love of books and reading because they aren't allowed to write sentences until they have learned how to spell each word.

e-mail

Page last updated on April 28, 2002