Whole Language, Phonics Methods

Re “State Report Urges Return to Basics in Teaching Reading,” Sept. 13:

Veteran teachers have long questioned the wisdom of implementing the “whole language” approach in lieu of a structured reading program with developmental, sequential vocabulary and phonics skills. When I dared to protest eight years ago, I was labeled as “set in my ways” and “too old to welcome change.” At my own expense, I attended the McCracken workshops and purchased hundreds of dollars of whole literature materials.

Last Spring I again voiced my opposition to yet another unproven, but expensive, experiment in primary math education. “Any Time Math,” published by HBJ, has been adopted by many LAUSD kindergarten, first- and second-grade classrooms at an initial cost of $600 per room. My second-grade classroom received a colorful kit filled with Atrilinks, “Big” storybooks, an anthology of literature and poems, computer disks which are unusable on the equipment in our school, a puppet and a host of guides written in Hmong, Vietnamese, Chinese, Tagalog and Spanish. There are no workbooks for my English-speaking class (although I did receive one copy of math activities which I may run off daily for my 32 students). The skill of “computation” has taken a back seat to the philosophy of a “thinking curriculum.”

For the sake of the children, let’s pray that this nonsense approach to math is thrown out immediately. I do not wish to read an article in The Times in 2003 stating that math educators of 1995 “misunderstood” the goal of math reform.

MARI SZULGA

Northridge

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While California ranks near the bottom in reading scores, we also rank near the bottom in quality of school libraries. Library quality statistics are important. There is strong research showing that reading, real reading for meaning, is the source of our reading ability, our writing style, vocabulary knowledge, much of our spelling ability and our ability to use complex grammatical constructions.

I am not in favor of the complete elimination of skills teaching. But studies showing that phonics instruction is effective do not compare phonics to methods that focus on real reading of interesting, comprehensible texts. In several recent studies, “skill-based” approaches have been compared to methods that emphasize hearing stories and real reading. Children in the whole language classes did better on tests of reading comprehension, while on tests of “skills” there was no difference between the groups.

STEPHEN KRASHEN

USC School of Education