Guessing (whole-language teachers prefer to call this “predicting by context”) is perfectly all right. Ken Goodman, professor of education at the University of Arizona and a whole-language proponent, says that “accuracy is not an essential goal of reading.” § This attitude is one of the most troubling aspects of whole-language reading. A classical education tries to equip a child to join the Great Conversation, to understand and analyze and argue with the ideas of the past. Those ideas are important. Those words are important. Aristotle chose his terms with care; the reader must struggle to
...more
