Reading Wars: Phonics vs Whole Language

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/jar/Reading_Wars.html

I chose this article because it had many different takes on learning to read. It mainly compared behaviorism to constructivism. In the article it states that the phonics emphasis in reading draws from the behaviorist learning theory that is associated with the work of B.F. Skinner, while the whole language emphasis draws from the constructivist learning theory that is associated with Vygotsky. One of my favorite sentences from the article was, "Various approaches to reading presume that students learn differently." I think that this is the whole point of learning all of these different theories, because everyone learns differently. 

All in all, this article was a great way to compare the two theories side by side. I also found it interesting to read about the differences in a phonics approach to learning to read and the whole language approach. In the article it talked about how students who come from a household that are not really exposed to reading in their homes seem to respond better to the whole language approach to reading instead of the phonics. If the students are from a different culture and might not speak the standard English that we might know, so the whole language approach encourages teachers to find reading material that reflects the students' language and culture.