ABSTRACT
Whole Language proceeds from the premise that learning to speak and learning to read are entirely comparable instances of language development. Code Emphasis, on the other hand, recognizes that speech and reading must follow very different developmental paths. Speech is wholly natural, an integral part of the child's specialization for language. The parent-teacher guide offers some equally unobjectionable ideas for the beginning literacy program. To find the important differences between Whole Language and Code Emphasis, one must put aside the easy truisms and look more deeply into the assumptions the two views make about the nature of language itself, and about the similarities or differences between the processes that underlie its spoken and written forms. This chapter examines a basic assumption of Whole Language, as exemplified by Goodman's description of a paradox he sees in the contrast between the ease of learning to speak and the relative difficulty of learning to read.
