Since the rise of the whole language movement, Sylvia Ashton-Warner's key vocabulary, individualized reading, and experience charts have been notable for their omission from the many books available on whole language. Whole language strength is notable in at least four major areas: (1) its learner-centeredness; (2) its scorn of commercial…

This paper argues that literature-centered reading programs, based on the perspective that reading is the process of bringing meaning to print, are in the best interest of the language minority students in the nation's elementary schools. After a review of basal reading systems and language-centered reading programs, the paper describes the…