Whole Language Approach | TEC
There are philosophies of reading and one common philosophy is the whole language approach. The basic goal of the whole language approach is simply comprehension. It is basically teaching children that language is composed of parts that work cooperatively to form a meaning.
The purpose of this approach is to teach beginners to basically learn to speak, listen, read, and write at the same time. This approach is emphasizing the meaning of text over the sounds of letters. The student constructs a personal meaning for a text but the student should interpret the meaning of the text by using their prior knowledge.
The whole language approach does not bother with alphabets, unlike phonics which really focuses on the letters and sounds. The whole language approach focuses more on memorizing the whole word and understanding its meaning of it. It is very far from phonics because phonics uses tools and rules to read a particular word whereas the whole language approaches you to have to memorize word after word after word.
According to Amanda Morin, the whole language approach also known as balanced literacy, the whole language approach is an educational philosophy that teaches children to read by using strategies that show how language is a system of parts that work together to create meaning. While it may sound as if this method discounts phonics, the use of phonemic awareness or sub-lexical reading is one of the components of the approach.
For teachers, when you are teaching a second language, English language, for instance, you should use authentic materials or authentic language. In the simplest terms, the whole language approach practically uses first language material in second language learning.
According to some studies, the principles of the whole language approach are the use of authentic literature rather than artificial, reading for comprehension and understanding the context, combing reading and writing, and other skills.
