‘Whole Language’ With a Splash of Phonics

The Massachusetts News Staff recently conducted an interview with Irene Fountas at Lesley College. Fountas is a professor at the college who is the writer of whole-language texts and is the co-author of Guided Reading, a text that incorporates the methods from both phonics and whole language.

Here are a few highlights from the interview: 

• Oral language learning is closely related to written language learning (Whole Language, n.d., para. 2).
• Children need to learn how to use all sources of information available to them (Whole Language, n.d., para. 4).
• Children need a strong foundation in phonics as part of an effective reading process (Whole Language, n.d., para. 4).
• The debate has much to do with how you teach phonological awareness (Whole Language, n.d., para. 6).
• Whole language  is a philosophy about the teaching of reading (Whole Language, n.d., para. 9).
• Whole language has helped people understand more about the role of language in literacy learning (Whole Language, n.d., para. 10).
• There is a misinterpretation of people who believe very strongly in structured phonics teaching (Whole Language, n.d., para. 11).

Fountas has an understanding of both the whole language side and the phonics side of the debate. She has stopped using the term “whole language” so that she could define her beliefs more clearly. Fountas explains that phonics is an integral part of the reading process and that it cannot be taught on its own. Phonics goes hand in hand with the whole language philosophy and that people who believe very strongly in the phonics as the only approach may in fact be overlooking things. This interview further supports my belief that phonics is necessary component in whole language instruction, but that it is not nearly as effective if it is taught in isolation.

Interview