Suggests ways in which teachers may plan and incorporate effectively whole-language theory into existing programs in which basal materials are established and accepted. (RS)

Presents guidelines designed to help teachers using whole language for the first time. Addresses a variety of concerns, including staff development, the change process, and implementation. (SR)

Discusses some principles, considerations, and cautions for those creating staff development programs in whole language. Discusses factors necessary for effective implementation of whole-language programs. (RS)

Reading and writing at one New Hampshire school district are considered integrated processes. Writing generates an enthusiasm for reading, and reading creates the impetus for writing. Whole language instruction has produced high reading comprehension scores, an increase in book-reading quality and quantity, and a dramatic drop in special education…

Suggests that the dangers and risks in whole language are real and irremedial, and educators' only recourse is to take responsibility for its shadow side and attempt to learn the lessons that even "monstrous examples" portend. (RS)

Describes a long-term inservice program aimed at restructuring one elementary school's literacy program. Focuses on observed changes that occurred as teachers became active participants in staff development sessions designed around effective change principles. (SR)

Change began in Saint Charles (Illinois) School District with a few teachers implementing new ideas in their own classrooms. Organized change began as principals and other administrators encouraged teachers to learn and grow. While teachers were developing process writing and whole-language programs, district embraced systemic change by entrusting…

Describes the ways key issues in whole-language implementation were handled in Tennessee's pilot program. Offers a framework for encouraging teachers to look closely at the advantages of whole language without squeezing them between a rock and a hard place. (RS)

Principals can successfully implement whole language reading programs if they educate staff and parents; engage in effective, inclusive long-range planning; encourage sharing among teachers; incorporate flexibility and experimentation in program development; and create an appropriate program evaluation system. Staff involvement is the key to…

Discusses collaboration between a teacher and an education professor in developing and implementing a new reading/language-arts program in a fifth-grade classroom. The move from a traditional basal reading and language-arts textbook approach to one using novels and process writing meant many changes for both teacher and students. An Author's…

To gain appreciation for each others' perspectives, a Mississippi language arts consultant and a third-grade teacher from Iowa traded jobs for a year. As a consultant, the teacher found that classroom teachers were more interested in whole-language instruction practicalities than in theory. As a teacher, the consultant learned that classroom…

Whole language supports a grass-roots approach to teaching through student writing that combines reading and writing across the curriculum with literature and interdisciplinary units. The whole-language approach has great value at the middle level but is time-consuming and requires considerable staff development and administrator support. (MLH)

The Language Lab was a pilot project which sought to develop communicative competence in deaf students with additional disabilities, through the use of the bilingual-bicultural approach and the whole language approach. This paper discusses goals of the Language Lab, classroom strategies, administration, and student evaluation. (Author/JDD)

Discusses designing, initiating, and collecting observational data from a program designed for a multicultural inner-city kindergarten classroom to teach emergent literacy, to use picture books representing children's cultures, and to share responsibility for children's own learning by freely initiating interactions with print materials. Notes…

A program for language learning-disabled students is described that uses a whole language philosophy to structure contexts that develop students' pragmatic, semantic, syntactic, graphophonemic, and metacognitive abilities underlying speaking, listening, reading, and writing. This paper describes the program environment, children, thematic…