Well I started teaching at the height of the WHOLE LANGUAGE craze. From my personal, not inconsiderable, teaching experience, I KNOW this to be the case.
For the sapiophiles out there, here's a sexy statistic. According to my most recent Wexler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), my Verbal IQ score puts me in the top .5th percentile of the population. I could read before I started kindergarten. I also grew up in a generation where we were taught the English language with spelling lessons, composition lessons, grammar lessons, handwriting lessons, etc. We were EXPLICITLY taught the parts of speech & rules of how to use them properly in a didactiic manner: the teacher put examples on the board, we copied them off the board, we learned the difference between and adverb or an adjective. On Monday, there was a Spelling pretest. A list of words was given; you either got them all right, or you corrected & practiced the ones you got incorrect. On & on it goes. I loved to read, and I love to write, because I enjoy the way that language can be crafted by using (or sometimes by smashing) the rules.
Then came the 90s. All the educational research was about whole language & the immersive experience. Teaching the love of language & literature first & foremost, using examples of pattern & repetitive language to help stimulate that, and helping students to internalize the rules of grammar, spelling, syntax, et al. BALLS!
By the 00s we were onto Directed Reading Instruction....as the pendulum swung back again.
