Wikipedia
Whole language describes a literacy philosophy which emphasizes that children should focus on meaning and strategy instruction. It is often contrasted with phonics-based methods of teaching reading and writing which emphasize instruction for decoding and spelling. However, from whole language practitioners' perspective, this view is erroneous and sets up a false dichotomy. Whole language practitioners teach to develop a knowledge of language including the graphophonic, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects of language. Within a whole language perspective, language is treated as a complete meaning-making system, the parts of which function in relational ways. It has drawn criticism by those who advocate " back to basics" pedagogy or reading instruction because whole language is based on a limited body of scientific research.
Usage examples of "whole language".
Thus his including it among these, while his whole language shows that he himself did not really reckon it among these, is an example of the fallacies of common-sense.
No, he thought while watching them, a whole language might be developed from this, if one paid proper attention.
The gift was not his, the whole language of the spirit which was greater than Latin or French was not to be seized in his pityfull mouth.
But where the whole language is colloquial, he that has only one part, never gets the rest, as he cannot get it but by change of residence.
In three years' time they became masters of the whole language, so that they read the best of the Greek authors very exactly.
It is a whole language within a language, a sort of sickly excrescence, an unhealthy graft which has produced a vegetation, a parasite which has its roots in the old Gallic trunk, and whose sinister foliage crawls all over one side of the language.