I read your story with unsurprised amazement — unsurprised because I still can't believe the Whole Language concept was introduced in the first place, and certainly without public vote.

My children were subjected to Whole Language because our district was committed to it for seven years. But I wasn't about to waste seven years of my kids' lives omitting as basic a building block as phonics; so I taught them phonics at home and they have all gone on to become exceptionally fluent readers, despite the struggling efforts of many of their classmates, and despite reprimands I occasionally endured from my kids' teachers that "phonics is just rote."

Is it any wonder that Whole Language refugees (high school students) are reading at the first-grade level today? Or is the real wonder that the school district isn't making the effort and picking up the tab to have these reading problems identified sooner than high school (i.e., not promoting them to the next grade level without sufficient skills)?

Will these students always be remembered simply as the "Oops Group" because Whole Language didn't work for them, and, as a result of an obvious seven-year, guinea-pig study, they have to live with the results? And when they are graduated anyway from high school and can't pass college entrance proficiency exams, will we hear, "Ooops, but that's not our problem anymore"?

Next time we put theories like Whole Language into action, how about giving those who have to live with the results, positive or negative, a vote in the decision? Ooops, did I say that?

CAROL OCHS
Allied Gardens

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