The progress of the whole-language debate

Abstract

The whole-language framework carries certain strong implications with respect to the appropriate and inappropriate content and conduct of classroom instruction. Because a number of these implications are new or controversial, empirical investigations of their relative instructional efficacy are strongly warranted. On the other hand, advocates of whole language have argued that it is properly seen, not as a set of methods, but as a set of beliefs about teaching and learning as a sociopsycholinguistic process and, further, that within this belief framework, questions about what works more or less well with whom are not merely unanswerable but logically unaskable. The thesis of this article is that the most controversial positions of the whole-language movement—including its rejection of the value instructional efficacy studies—derive from a misguided understanding of cognitive theory.