The reading wars describes the long-running dispute over how children should be taught to read: through phonics, systematically teaching the relationship between letters and sounds, or through whole language, which emphasizes meaning and context and treats decoding as a secondary skill children pick up through exposure to real text. Rudolf Flesch's 1955 book Why Johnny Can't Read argued for a return to phonics and helped launch the modern phase of the dispute; whole language gained influential support after Kenneth Goodman's 1967 article describing reading as a psycholinguistic guessing game. Later research reviews describe phonics and phonemic awareness instruction as critically important to early reading, without settling every question the two camps still dispute.
Facts
Disputed
Key ProvisionRudolf Flesch's 1955 book Why Johnny Can't Read argued for a return to systematic phonics instruction and is widely credited with opening the modern phase of the dispute. 1 Rudolf Flesch's 1955 book Why Johnny Can't Read argued for a return to systematic phonics instruction and is widely credited with opening the modern phase of the dispute. Whether systematic phonics or whole language better teaches reading is genuinely disputed between named research traditions; see the recorded dissents on this entity. FAQs
What is the reading wars debate about?
It is the dispute over whether children should be taught to read through phonics or through whole language.
The reading wars is the long-running dispute over how children should be taught to read: through phonics, which systematically teaches the relationship between letters and sounds, or through whole language, which emphasizes meaning and context and treats decoding as a secondary skill picked up through exposure to real text.
Has research settled the reading wars?
Not fully; research reviews call phonics instruction critically important, but the two camps still dispute other questions.
Not entirely. Later research reviews describe phonics and phonemic awareness instruction as critically important to early reading, but that finding has not settled every question the two camps still dispute.
Connections
Associated With
Balanced Literacy's own live entity-description: presented as a middle path between the two poles of the reading wars.
Whole language, the side of the Reading Wars dispute opposite phonics, draws on constructivist approaches to knowledge, emphasizing student interpretation of texts over decoding instruction.
Source Wikipedia
Programs built on the Direct Instruction model use scripted, systematic phonics instruction, the position associated with the phonics side of the Reading Wars dispute.
Source Wikipedia
Whole Language's own live entity-description: it became the losing side of the reading wars this atlas already records as its own Reading Wars policy entry.
Sources
1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia Foundationen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonics, The Reading Wars section, overview
A debate has been going on for decades about the merits of phonics vs. whole language, often known in the UK as 'look and say'.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonics, The Reading Wars section, Flesch
Rudolf Flesch advocated for a return to phonics in his book Why Johnny Can't Read (1955).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonics, The Reading Wars section, phonics research
Yet other researchers say instruction in phonics and phonemic awareness are 'critically important' and 'essential' to develop early reading skills.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonics, The Reading Wars section, Goodman
The whole-word method received support from Kenneth J. Goodman who wrote an article in 1967 titled Reading: A psycholinguistic guessing game.
Associated With: Direct Instruction, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_instruction, Success for All section
Success for All program, which uses scripted teaching to instruct elementary children in phonics and intensive reading in their instruction program.
Associated With: Constructivism, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_language, philosophy section
constructivist approaches to knowledge creation, emphasizing students' interpretations of texts and free expression of ideas in writing (often through daily journal entries)
View the Source Dissenting Readings (2 dissenting readings)
Key Provision
Researchers in this tradition say instruction in phonics and phonemic awareness is critically important and essential to develop early reading skills, and that systematic, explicit phonics instruction should anchor early reading teaching rather than being treated as secondary to meaning-making.
A dissenting reading, from an independent laneWikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation
Key Provision
Kenneth Goodman, who in a 1967 article described reading as a psycholinguistic guessing game, and the whole-language tradition that followed him hold that children construct meaning from context and connected text, and that heavy emphasis on decoding letter by letter can get in the way of real reading.
A dissenting reading, from an independent laneWikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation
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