The questions, after some 60 years of heated, though undefined debate, are anything but resolved. Apparently they know little of the neurological aspects of teaching reading, and of developing adequate auditory, verbal, visual, and motor cognitive skills. There is no known compiled research to support their theory, but it is based on the idea that if children learned to speak by being spoken to, they will learn print skills the same way. And, strangely, this does not necessarily mean that they are more intelligent than those for whom remedial classes will likely triple in need, if not in reality. All of which brings me to my point of digression from other whole language critics.
Time is the key word.
What use teachers make of it is the question. These skills can only be taught through direct instruction or with work sheets. Teachers should not be turned into glorified stockroom clerks who spend their days passing out papers, picking up papers, grading papers, and sending the rest home to Mom. We've all been hearing about our student's deficiencies in phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness must be taught by both students and teachers articulating the sounds of the letters and the sounds of the combinations of letters which are the spelling patterns of English.