Whole Language Philosophy

I appreciate the Time’s focus on reading, the most important of skills (“Reading: The First Skill,” Sept. 13). But both the front-page article and the editorial missed the most obvious and most important cause of the widespread adoption of the disastrous whole language learning philosophy.

Reporters and editors who write about the teaching of reading in California should put posters above their desks that say: “It’s the colleges of education, stupid!”

[The Sept. 13] editorial (“A Door to Good Things”) holds responsible “parents, teachers, principals, school board members, business leaders, legislators, and the governor--for the reading performance of primary-grade pupils.” But why not the source? Why not the college of education professors who train the administrators and the teachers, and advise the school boards and the newspapers?

Teachers and principals did not invent whole language learning; they only dutifully and mindlessly followed the dictates of the colleges of education. . . .

The Times reiterated its usual catechism that uncredentialled teachers are part of the problem, and part of the reason phonics is not taught. I seriously doubt this. If it were true, why wouldn’t kids at private schools, where the teachers are often not credentialled, be having greater reading problems than kids in the public schools? Why did California’s reading scores hit rock bottom in 1995, before the influx of uncredentialled teachers?

The truth is that the average person on the street, as well as a typical uncredentialled teacher, understands the importance of phonics and can do a reasonable job teaching reading just by using common sense. That’s why conscientious parents are able to teach their own kids to read. You have to attend graduate courses in education to “know” that phonics should not be taught.

DAVID KLEIN, Northridge