Stephen Krashen states that “whole language” another term for whole word involves instilling a love of literature, problem solving and critical thinking, collaboration, authenticity and personalized learning (2002, p. 32). Bette Bergeron in her paper on what the term whole language means found that there is a wide discrepancy amongst those that believe in whole word with research results that showed that twenty three point four percent felt that it was a philosophy while thirty four point four feel that it is an approach (1990, p.312).
Scholars allude to the fact that when reading phonetically a child has difficulty understanding the full meaning of the text and if they only read it once or twice may not understand the context …show more content…
As Stephen Krashen said earlier, it is also easier in young students to teach them words and keep their attention. Teachers feel that they should teach the “whole word approach to reading by beginning reading with whole words and at that point moving to phonics “(Schantz and Zimmer, 2005). It is also said that it makes it easier for children to read if you take the picture and instead of trying to teach them the sounds that make up the word picture that you just tell them the picture.
Eventually, as scholars got on the band wagons and theoretical teaching at the universities whole word was adopted and was the only method of teaching reading that future teachers were taught. At this time publishers realized that they could make extra money by printing and devising various books that catered to the whole word than they would under phonics. This led to the companies that controlled the teaching manuals creating such books as Dick and Jane, Alice and Jerry and eventually Dr. Seuss. All these books for teaching have and had one common thread in that they all repeat sentences and words again and again. One of Dr. Seuss’ early challenges and claims to fame were that he could write a whole picture book and only use 50 words. This fell in line with the Dick and Jane books in repeating words over and over again so the child learned to pronounce the word. The supporters of this method all point to the fact that children learn words in context of sentences, …show more content…
Even books are developed at the primary level that requires the student to be told what it says and to listen to the CD or teacher read. The researcher has found that students at all levels that although they are achieving high grades are not able to read or spell words. In one case a student in an English program could not read nor had any desire to learn due to the fact that it had become too difficult and the fact that she did not know made her feel inferior to her