The Whole-Part-Whole learning theory is based on the assumption that learners scaffold new learning to what they already know. The first part of the learning (whole) builds the context and connects the learner with the organizational framework. For students, this is sometimes referred to building background or connecting to prior learning experiences. For adult learners, it may be establishing the goals and objectives for the learning and how they support the organization.

Motivation for the new learning may be established by having learners specify the outcomes they wish for. The part is the introduction to the skills, techniques, processes that constitute the new learning. Given the framework from the whole, learners make sense of the new learning as they assimilate it into the schema they already have. The final stage, second whole, provides the linkage of the parts back to the whole. This often includes application of the new learning. The learner connects the prior knowledge to the new learning and constructs new meaning of the content.

Active learning contributes to the processing of the new information and to the transfer of the parts to the new whole. http://www.hsnrc.org/CDI/dstrickland1.cfm  This article explores the debate that continues between the whole language camp vs. the phonics instruction camp for reading instruction. Current research supports a combination of phonics and whole language instruction. Phonemic awareness is a precursor for reading in most children and must be taught as the part of the whole-part- whole instructional pathway. Once students understand the relationship between letters and sound, and the concepts of sounds make words, they can decode words. However, it is only when they experience language in the context of literature and assimilate the phonics instruction (part) with the context, that they create meaning of what they have read.

The combination of whole (prior experience and language development) to part (phonics) to whole (context and content) is proving an effective method for teaching reading. http://www.hsnrc.org/CDI/dstrickland1.cfm  Dorothy Strickland, researcher and educator, explores the effects of whole to part to whole method of reading instruction. She finds that this learning theory supports the needs of African-American students in their mastery of reading. She describes the steps in relationship to whole text, skills, and a return to the whole text for practice and application.

This is a site that contains a glossary of instructional strategies from A-Z. Interestingly, part to whole is one strategy, as is whole to part. This seems like a knockoff of the whole to part to whole strategy .

This ERIC Digest article connects the needs of adult learners to the whole language acquisition philosophy which contrasts the whole-part-whole prescribed method for teaching reading primarily with children. This technique proves successful in studies of prisoners, ABE learners, and ESL adults.

INDEX