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I don’t have a defense of whole word learning. I think it’s an example of Mao’s law- given the choice between admitting mistakes and terrible real world outcomes, bureaucrats will choose terrible real world outcomes every time.
But, I do want to chime in that there’s an occasional conspiracy theory in homeschooling circles that whole word learning is intended to teach children that meaning is completely arbitrary and thus communism or gender ideology or whatever. I don’t pay attention to the details. This is a fascinating example of cultural evolution; the justification for whole word learning is almost certainly not thought out beyond whatever bullshit is in the stated reason, but whole word learning sucks and is often recommended, so believing it’s even more sinister than Mao’s law, serves a purpose by getting people to use phonics which has the benefit of actually working.
Whole word learning seems to be good at very young ages, before your kid can talk. Then moving into phonics. Also, whole word learning is great in very small groups, preferably one-on-one. It seems that you can get basically any educational technique to work in one-on-one learning, probably because one-on-one learning is just so much better than group learning. So when these techniques are trialed in small groups, they seem to work. Then they get implemented in some private schools, or as a pilot in a decent public school, and it seems to work, because the type of student is just better. Then it is rolled out to the masses, where it just sucks.
Public schools have to deal with trying to get as many kids to reach the most basic level of literacy, in large class sizes, with educators who are typically bottom of the barrel and protected by their union. They do a really, really bad job at this, and it seems people developing the curriculum don't want 'traditional' models and techniques, they want something they can stick their name to. They also seem to be using the curriculum to promote their social goals, like anti-racism, which in their view means having white and black kids scoring the same, even if those scores are absolutely dismal. They don't care if blacks see their scores drop, as long as whites see their scores drop more, and come in line with blacks. That's equity.
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