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Whole Language Approach

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Whole Language Approach
The Whole Language Approach to Language Arts: This is a strategy which involves children learning through activities which will focus on the students. These activities consist of children being questioned about the text they are working on, problem-solving techniques, and it also involves writing activities. Other skill building activities which are also used are drawing, reading, and responding orally about the information which they are working on. (Whole). The question that some educators are asking is should it be used solely without the benefit of other approaches being implemented into their language program.
The whole language approach involves children actively being involved in the learning process instead of just being passive listeners. And through the activities listed above they are being actively involved in the learning process. Educators who use this strategy toward learning language are supposed to allow students to engage in these activities at their own speed and in their own ways, not everyone being taught one specific way (Whole).
There are some educators, policymakers, and parents who are not satisfied with only whole language instruction being used to teach Language. They believe that spelling, vocabulary, and grammar is not adequately addressed using the whole language approach. This is due to the instructors not teaching, spelling, grammar, and vocabulary as isolated events. There approach is dependent on context. An example of this would be a child working on a beginning speller trying to complete a writing exercise. Only to labor over one misspelled sentence for twenty minutes due to the individual struggling over each sound. But when the same individual was given instruction with each phoneme, he was able to successfully express himself in a meaningful statement (Whole). This on its own should not be a reason for

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