Towards a Balanced Literacy Instruction: Understanding Reading Skills within a Whole Language Paradigm.

The goals outlined in the California Language Arts Framework (1987) include a call for Language Arts instruction that promotes a love of reading through a sense of personal fulfillment, a sense of effectiveness through which students acquire a range of lifelong learning strategies that foster full participation in the world of work and the access to knowledge in a democratic society. It is with these fundamental goals and principles for language learning that the task of selecting appropriate materials and teaching strategies for classroom use must be undertaken. Many basal reading programs totally ignore the criteria of connecting classroom experiences with real life in order to create responsible lifelong learners. Materials and activities which reflect the real world and whose use can be extended into the daily lives of children after they leave the classroom are and should be included in the daily instructional practices of literacy classrooms. Good readers make meaning from text through risk-taking and hypothesis-making. Good reading instruction is that which builds on students' background knowledge, the extent of which can be determined through meaningful interaction between teachers and students. Funding currently set aside for the purchase of basal readers should be used to (1) promote a more holistic method of instruction; (2) implement staff development at school sites; and (3) purchase trade books and other authentic sources of reading.