Setting low standards and expectations for the language achievement of students with deafness or hearing impairments results in a self-fulfilling prophecy. A whole-language approach is based on a philosophy of high expectations and recognizes differences among students as factors that add richness to the exploration of language. (JDD)

Analyzes 18 articles selected as representative explanations of the whole-language position. Finds three themes that frame the thought and activities of the movement: general definitions, learning and teaching, and reading and reading instruction. Analyzes the articles using deconstruction to find their implicit assumptions, revealing underlying…

Responds to an article in the same journal on the rhetoric of whole language. Challenges issues of representation, motives involved, and the small unrepresentative sample involved. Discusses the rhetoric of camouflage. (SR)

Responds to an article in the same journal on the rhetoric of whole language. Shows how the authors of that article fail to do what they set out to do from their own perspective. Discusses choice of sources, treating the language seriously, and language without substance. Shows how those authors judge whole language not by its own principles but…

Responds to three articles (in the same journal) which responded to an article by these authors on the rhetoric of whole language. Discusses the nature of professional discourse. (SR)

Describes current literacy practices in Australia and the history of influential approaches to literacy instruction. Discusses the unique contexts of professional development and practice that may make Australian approaches to literacy different from whole-language movements in American schools. (SR)

In whole concept mathematics, students actually use math and understand the practicality of what they are studying. This learner-centered approach treats students with respect, uses real-life situations, encompasses a variety of learning styles, and involves cooperative learning techniques. (SK)

Discusses the part reading and writing play in the whole language approach. Offers 11 recommendations to help teachers provide a functional approach to language development. (MG)

Critique on two overstatements about literacy: the illiteracy problem is much worse than many people think and is getting worse; and literacy development is both the cause and the solution to many social problems and will lead to economic development. Explores issues in literacy education such as skills versus processes, standardized testing,…

Discussion of the development of oral language skills for elementary age children highlights the use of well-known folk tales such as "The Story of the Three Little Pigs" to involve a group in an oral language experience. The use of puppets is described, and props and resource materials are suggested. (LRW)

Examines direction, durability, and dynamics of affected shifts in teachers' theoretical orientation to reading after a two-day whole-language workshop. Finds that teachers moved away from initial beliefs as to how reading should be taught and retained this distance but did not move with consistency toward an alternative orientation. (RS)

Presents a variety of literacy evaluation strategies devised and implemented by a teacher who is making the transition to whole language. (MG)

Contains a vignette of a second grade classroom in which a whole language approach is used to teach reading and writing. Defines and describes whole language theory, practice, and goals. Offers guidelines to facilitate the process of changing from the basal to the holistic approach. (PRA)

Reviews two recent professional publications concerning alternative assessment: "Portfolio Assessment in the Reading-Writing Classroom" and "Assessment and Evaluation in Whole Language Programs." (MG)

The whole-language approach is discussed as a perspective-in-practice anchored in a vision of a equitable, diverse society. (Contains four references.) (LB)