In the eight years since whole language first appeared in the state’s gradeschools, California’s fourth-grade reading scores have plummeted to near the bottom nationally, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress(NAEP). Indeed, California’s fourth graders are now such poor readers that only the children in Louisiana and Guam–both hampered by pitifully backward education systems–get worse reading scores.

Charges and countercharges are flying as opposing sides try to affix blame for the deepening reading debacle. It has become clear that many of the problems stem from a tragic misreading of California’s 1987 reading framework, in which school administrators saw whole language techniques not merely as a helpful supplement to the traditional lessons needed by children in kindergarten through the third grade, but as a wholesale replacement for them. Hundreds of gradeschool principals banned spelling tests outright, saying childrens’ natural urge to read and write was being stifled by pressure from teachers to be precise. At hundreds more, phonics was prohibited by principals who said it was meaningless to gradeschoolers, citing a now-infamous absurdity from a traditional reading primer: “The cat sat on a fat hat.”

While some teachers found ways to combine the best elements of whole language with the needed skills of the old methods, others used whole language to escape the hard and time-consuming work of instructing beginning readers in phonics, grammar, spelling and other basic reading skills. The training gradeschool teachers were given to adapt the new ideas to the classroom was heavy on philosophy and soft on how to teach little kids to actually read.

I can buy the idea that whole language could have a place in language education for kids who can already read. But it’s no replacement for learning the basics first, as was seen in California in the 1990’s.

Thassit muthah-fuckahs!…Patronize the li’l bawstuds and teach ‘em Ebonics…After all…..Issa ’bout Growth ‘n’bein’ to the muthah-fuckin’ Mountaintop.”…………..”I HAD a Dream…..” MLK