Broader Visions Encompassing Literacy, Learners, and Contexts

I N THEIR ARTICLE "Visions and Revisions: A Special Education Perspective on the Whole Language Controversy," the authors describe two highly polarized approaches to reading instruction: whole language and direct instruction. This topic is of special importance and interest to us because, like the authors, we have been working in special education settings with teachers who have been trying to integrate elements of whole language instruction with more traditional direct instruction. We are regular witnesses to the tension these teachers experience as they seek to reconcile traditional approaches espoused in special education with more contemporary views (Klenk, in press; Palincsar & Klenk, in press; Palincsar, Klenk, Anderman, Hric, & Wilson, 1991). In addition, we have documented the responses of children who are caught in this tension, as expectations for their activity and performance vary quite dramatically from one task to another. That is, traditional skill-based activities typically assigned in the special education settings in which we are working require rote memory, are clearly defined in terms of their beginning and ending points, begin with the teacher, and are presented in fairly linear, predictable ways. The tasks we have introduced, such as responding to literature and telling or writing original stories, place different cognitive demands on the children, are ambiguous with regard to their beginnings and endings, are informed in large measure by the entering activity of the learner, and proceed in a less linear way because we do not assume that the "lower order" skills of reading (decoding) and writing (handwriting, spelling) are prerequisite to making real use of reading of writing in everyday and academic activity. We commend Gersten and Dimino for two reasons. First, they have moved the debate along by extending their analysis beyond the "whole word versus phonics" issue that has received a great deal of attention in special education literature (Fisher, 1985; Foorman & Liberman, 1989; Groff, 1977; Vellutino, 1991; Vellutino & Scanlon, 1986). We also commend the authors for their invitation to members of the opposing positions to engage in dialogue, a worthwhile effort in light of the continued zeal with which the controversy rages, fueled by intense political, psychological, and methodological ideologies (Edelsky, 1990). We do not actually agree with the authors' characterization of whole language. Whole language represents a perspective on language instruction; it does not describe an instructional procedure. It is not possible to make the sweeping generalizations concerning whole language that are framed in "Visions and Revisions." In fact, although teachers who assume a whole language perspective are more likely to engage in certain instructional practices, such as the use of trade-book literature and dialogue journals, there is considerable variability within those instructional procedures (Turner, 1991). Nor do we believe that reductionism is the sole flaw inherent in direct instruction. However, we do not believe that the authors would wish to mire this discussion in definitions, and we do not wish to spend our precious space quibbling; instead, we would like to urge that the dialogue broaden in scope to consider literacy (as opposed to simply reading) and shift to examine more overarching issues, such as the purposes and contexts of literacy instruction—especially for children who are experiencing difficulty with the development of reading and writing. We believe that these are highly interrelated issues that will provide a useful framework for examining instructional practice. In addition, we wish to identify three perspectives that