Whole Language and Language Experience Approaches for Beginning Reading: A Quantitative Research Synthesis

To examine the effects of whole language and language experience approaches on beginning reading achievement, a quantitative synthesis was performed on two data bases: the five projects conducted as part of the United States Office of Education (USOE) first grade studies and 46 additional studies comparing basal reading approaches to whole language or language experience approaches. The results of both analyses suggest that, overall, whole language/language experience approaches and basal reader approaches are approximately equal in their effects, with several exceptions. First, whole language/language experience approaches may be more effective in kindergarten than in first grade. Second, they may produce stronger effects on measures of word recognition than on measures of reading comprehension. Third, more recent studies show a trend toward stronger effects for the basal reading program relative to whole language/language experience methods. Fourth, whole language/language experience approaches produce weaker effects with populations labeled specifically as disadvantaged than they do with those not specifically labeled. Finally, studies with higher rated quality tend to produce lower effect sizes and the lowest effect sizes were found in studies that evaluated existing programs, as opposed to newly implemented experimental programs. These results are discussed within a stage model of reading that suggests that whole language/language experience approaches might be most effective for teaching functional aspects of reading, such as print concepts and expectations about reading, whereas more direct approaches might be better at helping students master word recognition skills prerequisite to effective comprehension.