Whole Language Reading Instruction

The whole-word method or whole-language approach uses real text for authentic reading and writing, and avoids looking at parts of written language for its own sake. There is a strong belief in child-centred learning, in that sense the whole language approach is as much a teaching philosophy as an instruction method. Whole-language embraces the ideals of the "top-down" methods of reading (see Goodman, 1970) and views the process of reading primarily as a strategic process.

A problem with the whole-word methods of instruction is that it is possible that children do not implicitly become aware of the building blocks of written language and thus fail to achieve the expertise required to attack and decode novel words.