Flowers, T. A. (2016, January 6). Review of Making Sense of Learners Making Sense of Written Language: The Selected Works of Kenneth S. Goodman and Yetta M. Goodman by K. S. Goodman and Y. M. Goodman. Education Review, 23. January 6, 2016 ISSN 1094-5296 Goodman, K.S., & Goodman, Y.M. (2014). Making Sense of Learners Making Sense of Written Language: The Selected Works of Kenneth S. Goodman and Yetta M. Goodman. New York: Routledge. Pp. 274 ISBN: 978-0-415-82033-2 Reviewed by Tiffany A. Flowers Georgia Perimeter College The purpose of this volume is to gather selected and key works by Ken and Yetta Goodman together to trace the history, rationale, and influences in their respective careers that helped shaped their philosophy on literacy. This is an excellent resource for those that want to understand the history and rationale behind whole language theory and how it has been shaped over the years. This book is divided into five parts. Body of Work Part I documents Ken Goodman’s life influences, education, and experiences in literacy. This chapter focuses on the formation of whole language and the rationale behind the movement. The discussion of whole language and how it evolved from a theory- to practice-to movement is included in this section, as well as why whole language borrows from many different fields of thought. This section also highlights the years of research and practice by those within the teaching profession. Part II of this book discusses the rationale for viewing miscue analysis as a strength instead of a deficit. Miscue analysis is framed as what readers can do as readers instead of just the mistakes they make. Under this framework, teachers learn to turn miscues into learning opportunities for students. Other strategies or concepts discussed in this chapter include the transactional experience of readers and making meaning of texts. Teachers’ beliefs about how children learn and how to teach reading are discussed. The cue systems of reading are discussed and the rationale for why they were renamed is included. Additional concepts discussed in this section include social learning theory, learning to read non-phonetic languages, and the intersection between thought and language. Part III focuses on explaining the research behind the cue systems in reading. Concepts such as miscue analysis, comprehension, schema theory, spelling, oral reading, silent reading, dialects, oral and written language, are discussed in detail in this section. Part IV includes classic articles such as “Kidwatching and Retrospective Miscue Analysis” authored by Yetta Goodman and “Revaluing Readers and Reading” by Ken Goodman. Concepts discussed in this section include multiple ways for children to become literate. In Part V, the final section of this book, the author includes essays on language differences, professionalism of teachers, literacy assessment, and working with students that are culturally deprived. Strengths and Weaknesses This book includes reflections from the authors as well as selected works that helped to frame the whole language movement. The main strength of this work is that the selected writings are key historical pieces used frequently in graduate level literacy foundation courses. This text is a great way to have a complete collection of the selected writings in one place. Many of the articles focus on the most pressing issues or strategies discussed in literacy today. Some of the concepts include spelling, miscue analysis, oral vs. silent reading, and making meaning during reading. The main weakness of this work is the lack of reflection on the research from Yetta Goodman from the 1970s. More specifically, there was an article included in this book about theory of cultural deprivation and black children in the 1970s in Detroit, Michigan. I expected to see some current reflection on the salience of this historical piece. The questions in my mind were whether she felt like teachers were still responding in a similar manner? Do teachers still believe this is true? How did this cultural deprivation explanation limit the educational experiences for black children in Detroit and other parts of the U.S. at that time? How did this work impact or alter the whole language movement or training for teachers? The black cultural arts revolution was birthed in the 1970’s. Why was this not present in the research literature in regards to teaching black children at that time? The article was a ground-breaking piece in the seventies. However, there was no reflection on how it impacted the field of education even today. Educational Implications This text should be required reading in all graduate level foundations of literacy instruction courses. As literacy educators learn about the great debates in reading, it is so important to learn how the whole language movement began. This text helps readers to understand how whole language was formed and the disciplines it borrows from to create a richer understanding of literacy as a whole. This text is useful for teacher educators, graduate students, and those outside the field of education seeking to understand whole language. Advanced graduate students that conduct research on whole language will be interested in the underpinnings of reader response theory, miscue analysis, and the intersection of thought and language. About the Reviewer Tiffany A. Flowers is an Assistant Professor of Education at Georgia Perimeter College. She is an Indiana Minority Faculty Fellow, Frederick Douglas Teaching Fellow, and an NCTE Early Career Award Leadership Award Recipient. Her research interests include African American literacy development, literature, diversity issues in education, and emergent literacy. Education Review/Reseñas Educativas/Resenhas Educativas is supported by the edXchange initiative’s Scholarly Communications Group at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University. Copyright is retained by the first or sole author, who grants right of first publication to the Education Review. Readers are free to copy, display, and distribute this article, as long as the work is attributed to the author(s) and Education Review, it is distributed for non-commercial purposes only, and no alteration or transformation is made in the work. More details of this Creative Commons license are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/. 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