Two primary styles of elementary school reading programs, Phonics and Whole Language, are examined. A discussion of the origins of each method provides insight into the ongoing battle being fought within the educational community concerning the most effective reading program of the two. A description of the programs and review of the problems and attributes associated with each follow. An evaluation of data, found within numerous articles and two books concentrating on the issue of phonics versus whole language instruction, indicates that providing instruction in both whole language and phonics is the most effective way to teach elementary school students to read.

Phonics and Whole Language Instruction

During the past thirty years, a battle has been fought throughout educational communities within the United States. The battle focuses on the perceived problem of increasing illiteracy rates and why a large number of educators feel the reason for that illiteracy is directly linked to the use of Whole Language instruction in today’s elementary school classrooms. On the one side stand the proponents of phonics who believe the best way to teach

who believed teaching should follow nature. In nature, Rosseau believed, Man is presented with wholes—a bush, a shell, an animal, a hill. In order to learn about the wholes, Man had to determine what they consisted of, starting with the finished product and breaking it down to its parts. Gedke applied this theory to the ability to read. He felt that beginning readers must first learn the word in order to understand its smaller parts, the letters. He organized his primer so that each page focused exclusively on words beginning with one specific letter. When printed, the primary letter was identified using red ink. By the time a beginning reader finished the book, all the letters of the alphabet had been learned. Using this approach, he taught his five-year-old daughter to read in two months (Flesch, 1981).

story or seen the value of communicating in writing” (1994, cited in Holdren, p. 2).

Some topics in this essay:
Language Instruction, Bettelheim Zelan, Test SAT, Follow-Through Project, Jean-Jacques Rosseau, Phonics Language, Human Development, James Catrell, Associated Language, Panel NRP, language instruction, phonics language, phonics language instruction, bettelheim zelan, children read, instruction phonics, zelan 1981, bettelheim zelan 1981, teaching children read, educational community, phonetic instruction, teaching children, phonics instruction, child read write, fought educational community,