Literacy Primer by Blake and Blake

Blake, Brett Elizabeth and Robert W. Blake. Literacy Primer. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 2005. Print.


Literacy Primer discusses literacy its many aspects. It introduces and defines types of literacy (autonomous, multiple, basis, functional, numerate, etc.), examines issue of literate vs. illiterate and explores the history of the development of literacy from Ancient Greeks to present.

Although relatively small in size (193 pages including 20 pages of references and resources), I find this book to be comprehensive in its coverage of literacy and highly readable. My only reservation is that the authors seem biased in preference for literate over oral societies/cultures and toward the English language. Despite this I feel the book useful in helping a new student like myself become acquainted with the terms, language and issues of literacy.

Stay tuned. I have read my way through to page 121. More in depth comment to follow.

Whole Language Learning Theory

In our first "Theories and Models of Literacy" class I commented that in teaching reading I ascribed to the Whole Language Learning Theory as opposed to teaching reading using phonetics. I added that I learned to read this way. (I attended first grade in the early fifties.) However, when asked what Whole Language Learning means exactly I was at a loss to explain.

Doing a bit of research I can succinctly define it this way: The Whole Language Learning Theory essentially is a literacy philosophy that emphasizes reading for meaning and strategy instruction rather than teaching methods of decoding and breaking down words as in phoenics.

Wikepedia says, "Whole language is an educational philosophy that is complex to describe, particularly because it is informed by multiple research fields including but not limited to education, linguistics, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Several strands run through most descriptions of whole language:
focus on making meaning in reading and expressing meaning in writing;
constructivist approaches to knowledge creation, emphasizing students' interpretations of text and free expression of ideas in writing (often through daily journal entries).
emphasis on high-quality and culturally-diverse literature; integrating literacy into other areas of the curriculum, especially math, science, and social studies; frequent reading, (a) with students in small "guided reading" groups, (b) to students with "read alouds," and (c) by students independently; "reading and writing for real purposes; focus on motivational aspects of literacy, emphasizing the love of books and engaging reading materials; meaning-centered whole to part to whole instruction where phonics are taught contextually in "embedded" phonics (different from decontextualized phonics); and emphasis on using and understanding the meaning making role of phonics, grammar, spelling, capitalization and punctuation in diverse social contexts.
Underlying premises of whole language Learning theory
The idea of "whole" language has its basis in a range of theories of learning related to the epistemologies called "holism." Holism is based upon the belief that it is not possible to understand learning of any kind by analyzing small chunks of the learning system. Holism was very much a response to behaviorism, which emphasized that the world could be understood by experimenting with stimuli and responses. Holists considered this a reductionist perspective that did not recognize that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." Analyzing individual behaviors, holists argued, could never tell us how the entire human mind worked. This is—in simplified terms—the theoretical basis for the term "whole language."

This is the teaching philosophy we use in the Adult Learning Center at the Brooklyn Public Library where I tutor.