Topic: Phonics--Basal and Whole Language

10-second review: 6 children learned the alphabet beginning in kindergarten through first grade. 3 children learned the alphabet with a basal program. 3 children learned the alphabet in a whole language setting. Which instructional setting was better for learning phonics?

Title: “A comparison of Children’s Development of Alphabetic Knowledge in a skills-based and a  Whole Language classrooms.” E McIntyre and PA Freppon. Research in the Teaching of English (December 1994), 341-417.

Summary: The six children had in common, although in different instructional settings, self-selected reading, some writing and explicit phonic instruction. All the children learned the alphabet although the instructional setting differed.

Comment: The authors say that the results of this study cannot be generalized because other, unknown factors could have contributed to the students’ success in learning the alphabet. Still, it’s comforting to have some evidence that phonics can be developed in a whole language setting.

And, of course, there’s another issue—making sure that students are able to apply the phonics knowledge to decoding words, not simply memorizing the phonics principles. The authors imply that that approach was used in the whole language setting, but not necessarily in the Basal setting.

The study also shows that similar activities can be found in both basal and whole language settings, i.e., self-selected reading and writing, which seem always to be solely attributed to the whole language setting. RayS.