Excerpts from The Schools Our Children Deserve (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1999) On Teaching Reading, Spelling, and Related
Subjects Half Truths About Whole Language “Kids aren’t learning
how to read these days because ivory-tower ideologues have
eliminated the teaching of necessary basic skills in favor of
feel-good, PC fads like Whole Language. We’d do a lot better if
we brought back good old-fashioned phonics!” These days there’s
no escaping pronouncements like that one. Such a position is
understandably popular: it’s simple and straightforward, and its
urgency commands attention. Not only is it tirelessly promoted
by social and political conservatives, but most of the articles
that appear in mainstream newspapers and magazines about
teaching children to read tend to dismiss Whole Language as a
fad and claim that “studies show” children need direct
instruction in phonics. Meanwhile, supporters of Whole Language,
even on those rare occasions when they manage to get their
voices heard by the general public, h