Canada has become a leader in whole-language instruction in North America. Whole-language classrooms are student-centered, literature-centered, and organized to support small group work. Language learning extends across the curriculum, and teachers do not rely solely on basal reading programs. The whole-language philosophy has been adopted as official policy in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Nova Scotia. Teachers are increasingly encouraged to move away from skills-based instruction toward whole-language approaches. A curriculum guide used in Nova Scotia provides a model for a system-wide whole-language program. Canadian researchers and educators have influenced the development of whole-language instruction in the country. The Report Card on Basal Readers, authored by Kenneth

1. Canada: A Leader in Whole-Language Instruction
Author(s): Tom McConaghy
Source: The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 70, No. 4 (Dec., 1988), pp. 336-337
Published by: Phi Delta Kappa International
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2. IN CANADA TOM McCONAGHY
Canada: A Lea
IIWrhole-Langu
nstruct ioni
THHE MORE THAN 15,000
people attending the annual
conference of the Internation
al Reading Association (IRA)
in Toronto last May were cer
tainly made aware of the term whole lan
guage. Perhaps the emphasis on whole
language came about in part because the
IRA convention was held in Canada for
the first time, and Canada has become a
leader in the whole-language movement
in North America.
It is difficult to define exactly what is
meant by the phrase whole language.
Many of the speakers at the convention
spoke as if "whole-language teachers"
share a particular set of beliefs or a cer
tain perspective on language develop
ment. Kenneth Goodman has written that
"whole language is clearly a lot of things
to a lot of people; it's not a dogma to be
narrowly practiced. It is a way of bring
ing together a view of language, a view
of learning, a view of people, in particu
lar two special groups of people: kids and
teachers. "1
Whole-language classrooms are stu
dent-centered, literature-centered, rich in
the variety of printed matter they contain,
and often organized to support small
group work. Within these classrooms,
language learning extends across the cur
riculum, and teachers do not rely on basal
reading programs for direction in teach
ing reading and writing.
The idea of whole language has taken
off in most Canadian provinces in the last
decade. In Quebec and Nova Scotia,
whole-language programs have become
official policy. This does not mean that
all classrooms in these provinces are us
ing whole-language approaches. In fact,
- More and more
teachers are being
encouraged to
break away from
skills-dominated
instruction.
only a small percentage are doing so. But
it does mean that more and more teachers
are being encouraged to break away from
skills-dominated instruction in favor of
a whole-language approach to teaching
reading and writing.
Of the 22 preconvention institutes spon
sored by the IRA, nine featured some as
pect of the whole-language philosophy.
One such institute, conducted by a group
of educators from Nova Scotia, provid
ed a glimpse of the changes in literacy
instruction that have taken place in the
province. The institute showed how offi
cials of the provincial education depart
ment, university professors, school sys
tem and school board consultants and ad
ministrators, and classroom teachers
could work together to develop classroom
practices consistent with the whole-lan
guage philosophy.
Language Arts in the Elementary
School, the curriculum guide used in
Nova Scotia, is an excellent model for a
systemwide whole-language program.2
The guide is designed "to assist teachers
and administrators in presenting a care
fully integrated language arts program."
It includes descriptions of the philosophy,
of teaching strategies, of necessary re
sources, and of classroom planning and
organization. The guide also describes "a
holistic understanding of language learn
ing" that is based on the most recent re
search and theory in this area.
Judith Newman of Mount Saint Vin
cent University in Halifax has been a
catalyst for much of the whole-language
movement in Nova Scotia. Other Cana
dian researchers and educators who have
influenced the whole-language movement
in Nova Scotia include Frank Smith, Gor
don Wells, and John McInnis. In addi
tion, work in language and literacy by
a number of researchers and educators
around the world has influenced the whole
language movement in the province: James
Britton, Margaret Meek, and Harold
Rosen of Great Britain; Marie Clay and
Don Holdaway of New Zealand; and Ken
neth Goodman, Yetta Goodman, Jerome
Harste, Donald Graves, and a number of
others from south of the border.
One of the sessions at the IRA conven
tion that stressed the whole-language ap
proach was a presentation and discussion
of Report Card on Basal Readers, the
167-page report of a committee called to
gether by the National Council of Teach
ers of English (NCTE) to study the state
of basal readers. The chairman of the ses
sion - and the principal author of the re
port - was Kenneth Goodman. Interest
in this session was so great that a larger
room had to be found to accommodate
the crowd.
The NCTE report is a shot in the arm
for whole-language teachers and should
give them the courage to continue to base
their teaching on what they know about
how children learn and about the impor
tance of real books in teaching children
to read. Report Card points out:
TOM McCONAGHY (University of Alber
ta Chapter) is an editorial consultant and edu
cation writer in Edmonton, Alta.
336 PHI DELTA KAPPAN
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3. More than anything else basals are
built around control: They control read
ing; they control language; they con
trol learners; they control teachers.
And this control becomes essential to
the tight organization and sequence.
Any relaxation of the control in any of
these elements would appear to under
mine the whole system. That's why
publishers admonish teachers not to
wander from the direction of the man
uals; that's why administrators issue
mandates requiring teachers to be faith
ful to the program.
If there were evidence that this tight
control was necessary to the develop
ment of reading, then we might grudg
ingly tolerate it. The evidence from
science - recent theory and research
- is that reading, like all language,
only develops easily and well in the
context of its use. The learner needs the
freedom to experiment, to take risks,
to raise questions in the process of try
ing to make sense of comprehensible
written language.3
Dorothy Watson of the University of
Missouri at Columbia said of Report
Card, "It's important to know that there
has always been a pinpoint of sanity when
it comes to basal readers, and the loca
tion of that sanity is usually Canada."4
John McInnis of the Ontario Institute
for Studies in Education, who was a pan
elist at the session at which Report Card
was released, described how Canadian
publishers have been dismantling basals
since 1962, when Canadian schools end
ed their reliance on American basals and
began to produce their own. He pointed
out that Canadian basals did away with
readability formulas, end-of-level tests,
and word lists.
Report Card also suggests that possi
ble alternatives to the use of basals might
come from some innovative programs de
veloped in Canada, including Networks
from Nelson, Unicorn from McGraw
Hill, and Impressions from Holt, Rine
hart & Winston of Canada. Impressions
is presented as a whole-language pro
gram, although it still has the appearance
of a basal. Some American teachers and
schools are switching to the Canadian im
ports. The public schools in Portland,
Oregon, for example, adopted Impres
sions systemwide in 1986-87.
Teachers from all of Canada's prov
inces have been attending conferences,
institutes, and inservice training sessions
in which a holistic approach to reading
and writing is presented. Orin Cochrane
and a group of teachers from Winnipeg
formed a nonprofit professional develop
ment group known as CEL (Child-cen
tered Experience-based Learning). They
are in constant demand to conduct work
shops across Canada and in many parts
of the U.S. The school board in Edmon
ton, through the efforts of Margaret Ste
venson, who was supervisor of language
arts for many years, has formed seven in
dependent and voluntary support groups
in which whole-language teachers meet
regularly to discuss learning theory and
classroom practice.
One more reason that Canada has be
come a leader in the whole-language
movement is that one of the leading pub
lishers in the field is Toronto's Scholastic
TAB publications. Adrian Peetoom, who
directs Scholastic-TAB, has encouraged
authors to write books and monographs
dealing with whole-language philosophy.
Scholastic-TAB also publishes a quarterly
newsletter for teachers on the whole
language approach.
Teachers who are involved in whole
language instruction are enthusiastic and
say that they love teaching. They also at
tend conferences, take inservice training
courses, and read professional books and
journals. One of the principles of the
whole-language approach is that teachers
are learners; thus many whole-language
teachers have become researchers in their
own classrooms. These are teachers who
act and feel like professionals.
Silver Donald Cameron, a Nova Sco
tia writer, summed up the typical
whole-language teacher in Homemaker's
magazine:
Teachers like these are committed to
their own learning - their own grow
ing mastery of language - as well as
to their students' growth. If there is
hope in the struggle for literacy, it's
here - turned-on teachers who really
care about language, intent on sharing
their own sense of joy and discovery
with our children. With teachers like
that we may yet become a literate na
tion.5
1. Kenneth S. Goodman, What's Whole in Whole
Language (Richmond Hill, Ont.: Scholastic-TAB
Publications, 1986), p. 5.
2. Language Arts in the Elementary School (Hali
fax, Nova Scotia: Curriculum Development Teach
ing Guide, No. 86, Halifax Department of Educa
tion, 1986).
3. Kenneth S. Goodman et al., Report Card on Bas
al Readers (Katonah, N.Y.: Richard C Owen,
1988), p. 125.
4. Dorothy Watson, "Basais: A Report on the Read
ing Commission Study," Teachers Networking: A
Whole Language Newsletter, Richard C Owen,
Inc., New York, N.Y.
5. Silver Donald Cameron, "Struggling Toward
Literacy," Homemaker's, September 1987, p. 26. El
SCHOL B :
aPssst! The teachers have 20 bucks for you if you forget to pick up the Fillmond
kid. "
DECEMBER 1988 337
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