Editing Whole language (section)

===Ken Goodman's linguistic theory===
Gregory Shafer, a professor of English at Mott Community College, has claimed that "the seeds" of the whole language movement were "firmly rooted" in the theories of linguist [[Noam Chomsky]].<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1429&context=lajm |title=Whole Language: Origins and Practice|first=Gregory|last=Shafer|journal=Language Arts Journal of Michigan|volume=14|number=1|year=1998 |doi=10.9707/2168-149X.1429 }}</ref> In 1967, [[Ken Goodman]] had an idea about reading that he considered similar to Chomsky's, and he wrote a widely cited article called "Reading: A psycholinguistic guessing game".<ref>{{Cite journal |title=A psycholinguistic guessing game|journal=Journal of the Reading Specialist|volume=6|issue=4|pages=126–135|doi=10.1080/19388076709556976|year = 1967|last1 = Goodman|first1 = Kenneth S.}}</ref> Goodman set out to determine whether the views of Chomsky could serve as psychological models of the reading process.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://msu.edu/~dwong/StudentWorkArchive/CEP900F00-RIP/Tower-Literacy.htm |title=CEP 900: Research Interests|first=Cathy|last=Tower|date=11 December 2000}}</ref> He chided educators for attempting to apply what he saw as unnecessary [[orthography|orthographic]] order to a process that relied on holistic examination of words.<ref>{{cite book|title=Reading: A psycholinguistic guessing game – Literacy Research and Instruction }} {{fcn|date=March 2022}}</ref> Whether Goodman was indeed inspired by Chomsky, neither Chomsky himself nor his followers have ever accepted Goodman's views.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004261.html |title=The globalization of educational fads and fallacies|first=Mark|last=Liberman|date=2 March 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Pesetsky |first=David |date=8 April 2000 |title=The Battle for Language: from Syntax to Phonics |url=http://web.mit.edu/~linguistics/people/faculty/pesetsky/USC_talk.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151224011917/http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/pesetsky/USC_talk.pdf |archive-date=24 December 2015}}</ref>

Goodman thought that there are four "cueing systems" for reading, four things that readers have to guess what word comes next:
# graphophonemic: the shapes of the letters and the sounds that they evoke (see [[phonetics]]).
# semantic: what word one would expect to occur based on the meaning of the sentence so far (see [[semantics]]).
# syntactic: what part of speech or word would make sense based on the grammar of the language (see [[syntax]]).
# pragmatic: what is the function of the text

The "graph" part of the word "graphophonemic" means the shape or symbol of the graphic input, i.e., the text. According to Goodman, these systems work together to help readers guess the right word. He emphasized that pronouncing individual words will involve the use of all three systems (letter clues, meaning clues from context, and syntactical structure of the sentence).{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}

'''The graphophonemic cues''' are related to the sounds we hear (the phonological system including individual letters and letter combinations), the letters of the alphabet, and the conventions of spelling, punctuation, and print. Students who are emerging readers use these cues considerably. However, in the English language, there is a very imprecise relationship between written symbols and sound symbols.<ref name="Goodman">{{cite book|last=Goodman|first=Yetta|title=Reading Miscue Inventory|year=2005|publisher=Robert C. Owen Publishers, Inc.|location=Katonah, NY}}</ref> Sometimes the relationships and their patterns do not work, as in the example of ''great'' and ''head''. Proficient readers and writers draw on their prior experiences with text and the other cueing systems, as well as the phonological system, as their reading and writing develops. Ken Goodman writes that, "The cue systems are used simultaneously and interdependently. What constitutes useful graphic information depends on how much syntactic and semantic information is available. Within high contextual constraints an initial consonant may be all that is needed to identify an element and make possible the prediction of an ensuing sequence or the confirmation of prior predictions."<ref name="Kenneth Goodman" /> He continues with, "Reading requires not so much skills as strategies that make it possible to select the most productive cues." He believes that reading involves the interrelationship of all the language systems. Readers sample and make judgments about which cues from each system will provide the most useful information in making predictions that will get them to meaning. Goodman<ref name="Kenneth Goodman">{{cite book|last=Goodman|first=Kenneth|title=Language and Literacy|year=1982|publisher=Routledge & Kegan|location=Boston|isbn=978-0-7100-0875-6|url=https://archive.org/details/languageliteracy0000good}}</ref> provides a partial list of the various systems readers use as they interact with text. Within the graphophonemic system there are:
* Letter–sound relationships
* Shape (or word configuration)
* Know 'little words' in bigger words
* Whole know words
* Recurrent spelling patterns

'''The semantic cuing system''' is the one in which meaning is constructed. "So focused is reading on making sense that the visual input, the perceptions we form, and the syntactic patterns we assign are all directed by our meaning construction."<ref name="K.Goodman">{{cite book|last=Goodman|first=K.|title=On Reading|year=1996|publisher=Heinemann|location=New Hampshire|isbn=978-0-435-07200-1}}</ref> The key component of the semantic system is context. A reader must be able to attach meaning to words and have some prior knowledge to use as a context for understanding the word. They must be able to relate the newly learned word to prior knowledge through personal associations with text and the structure of text.

The semantic system is developed from the beginning through early interactions with adults. At first, this usually involves labeling (e.g., "This is a dog"). Then labeling becomes more detailed (e.g., "It is a Labrador dog. Its coat is black.") The child learns that there is a set of "dog attributes" and that within the category "dog", there are subsets of "dog" (e.g., long-hair, short-hair). The development of this system and the development of the important concepts that relate to the system are largely accomplished as children begin to explore language independently. As children speak about what they've done and play out their experiences, they are making personal associations between their experiences and language. This is critical to success in later literacy practices, such as reading comprehension and writing. The meaning people bring to the reading is available to them through every cuing system, but it's particularly influential as we move from our sense of the syntactic patterns to the semantic structures.<ref name="Kenneth Goodman" />

'''The syntactic system''', according to Goodman and Watson,<ref name="Goodman" /> includes the interrelation of words and sentences within connected text. In the English language, syntactic relations include word order, tense, number, and gender. The syntactic system is also concerned with word parts that change the meaning of a word, called morphemes. For example, adding the suffix "less" or adding "s" to the end of a word changes its meaning or tense. As speakers of English, people know where to place subjects, which pronoun to use, and where adjectives occur. Individual word meaning is determined by the place of the word in the sentence and the particular semantic or syntactic role it occupies.<ref>{{cite book|last=Itzkoff|first=Seymour|title=How We Learn to Read|year=1986|publisher=Paideia Publishers|location=Ashfield, MA|isbn=978-0-913993-04-0|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/howwelearntoread0000unse}}</ref>
For example:

''T''he mayor was present when he received a beautiful present from the present members of the board''.''

The syntactic system is usually in place when children begin school. Immersed in language, children begin to recognize that phrases and sentences are usually ordered in certain ways. This notion of ordering is the development of syntax. Like all the cuing systems, syntax provides the possibility of correct prediction when trying to make sense or meaning of written language. Goodman notes the cues found in the flow of language are:<ref name="Kenneth Goodman" />
* Patterns of words (or function order)
* Inflection and inflectional agreement
* Function words such as noun markers (the, a, that)
* Intonation (which is poorly represented in writing by punctuation)

'''The pragmatic system''' is also involved in the construction of meaning while reading. This brings into play the socio-cultural knowledge of the reader. It provides information about the purposes and needs the reader has while reading. Yetta Goodman and Dorothy Watson state that, "Language has different meaning depending on the reason for use, the circumstances in which the language is used, and the ideas writers and readers have about the contextual relations with the language users. Language cannot exist outside a sociocultural context, which includes the prior knowledge of the language user. For example, shopping lists, menus, reports and plays are arranged uniquely and are dependent on the message, the intent, the audience, and the context."<ref name="Goodman" />

By the time children begin school, they may have developed an inferred understanding of some of the pragmatics of a particular situation. For example, turn-taking in conversation, reading poetry, or a shopping list. "While different materials may share common semantic, syntactic, and graphophonic features, each genre has its own organization and each requires certain experiences by the reader."<ref name="Goodman" />

Goodman performed a study where children first read words individually and then read the same words in connected text. He found that the children did better when they read the words in connected text. Later replications of the experiment failed to find effects, however, when children did not read the same words in connected text immediately after reading them individually, as they had in Goodman's experiment.<ref>{{cite book |author=Pressley, Michael |title=Reading instruction that works: the case for balanced teaching |publisher=Guilford Press |location=New York |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-59385-228-3 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gl6TWPOE2o0C&q=Reading+instruction+that+works:+The+case+for+balanced+teaching&pg=PA1 |title=Reading instruction that works: the case for balanced teaching | author=Michael Pressley |year=2006 |publisher=Guilford Publications |isbn=978-1-59385-228-3 }}</ref>

Goodman's theory has been criticized by other researchers who favor a phonics-based approach, and present research to support their viewpoint. Critics argue that good readers use decoding as their primary approach to reading, and use context to confirm that what they have read makes sense.