ABSTRACT
At the official meetings of the National Reading Panel (NRP) over its 2 year existence, the words “Whole Language” were uttered only twice. Both times I was the one who spoke them, hoping that I might arouse some flicker of interest in the major advance in the teaching of reading over the past 30 years. No one seemed to notice, and the panel’s discussions of discrete skills went on just as before. I was wary of pushing too hard, knowing that, on the surface at least, the panel was “whole language free.” Over the long haul, it seemed wiser to try to slide some whole language elements into the range of topics the panel had decided to investigate than to stand on a soapbox demanding that whole language receive the full and respectful attention I believed it deserved.
