Whole language is a reading instruction that does not involve phonics. Students are exposed to a variety of simple literature, often in basal readers. This method of reading instruction allows, and promotes, the learning of sight words (memorized words), and common irregularly spelled words. However, it does not provide a method for reading a new or different word, and therefore should be combined with a variety of reading approaches, such as phonics.

*I had trouble finding things to pipelink this to; it is my plan to create better pipe links with write ups over the next few days*