Word: goodmans
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Alexis M. Goodman...
...Goodman's main strategy in response to his critics is to say they are the unwitting pawns of the Christian right. It is true that conservatives have taken up phonics as a cause, but in California, where there are plenty of liberals in the legislature, pro-phonics legislation passed unanimously. Asked what the best response to pro-phonics research is, Goodman refers to his book Phonics Phacts, a folksy 100-page paperback. Preferring the "ethnographic" data he collects, Goodman dismisses the research conducted by his opponents. Asked if there is research from other fields that confirms his findings, he cannot...
...Goodman's and Smith's theories have been put into practice very directly. At a whole-language school in New York City that TIME visited, a first-grade teacher had put a Post-it on the last word on every page of a book. The children tried to guess the hidden words. "Why do I cover words when we read a new book?" the teacher asked. "So that we can practice our skipping strategy. That's your most important skill...
...Goodman says whole language has two bases: "the scientific and the humanistic," and the humanistic strand is an important reason for its appeal. With whole language, reading is considered an organic process, the dignity of teachers is paramount, and they regard their students as collaborators. These attitudes sit firmly within the tradition of progressive education, and it is tempting to think that the humanism came first and the science later. Goodman reacts to that speculation with a shrug and a smile. "I like people," he says. "And I'm very happy that my research confirms my prejudices...
...Phonics," Goodman once wrote, "is a flat-earth view of the world, since it rejects modern science about reading and writing and how they develop." Apparently, though, it is the whole-language advocates who reject what modern science has to say about reading--which is that readers do attend to every letter, that phonics taught in isolation is effective and that poor readers rely on context, while good readers do not. Thus by encouraging guessing, a whole-language teacher is reinforcing a bad habit. As for the idea that written language is acquired as naturally as oral language, that...