Essentially, the whole of the language is taught before the parts. Teachers provide a rich environment of books, magazines, charts, labels, listening centers and other materials that foster the children's enjoyment of reading without emphasizing their mistakes in spelling, reversed letters or punctuation. It is intended to be a comfortable environment that allows children to take control of the language process using their own abilities to glean information from the visual clues in the story without drilling them on decoding word skills, spelling rules and grammar and punctuation requirements. In contrast, Phonics is a system of teaching reading that relies on the association of sounds with letters. There is a heavy emphasis on teaching word decoding skills as a way to sound out unfamiliar words.
Teachers use basal readers which introduce skills and vocabulary words in an ordered sequence.
Children move through the basal reading system by demonstrating comprehension of the skills and vocabulary used in each reader. There are pros and cons to each approach with experts disagreeing over outcomes. Or they could cite a French study that ranked the US in the highest category in the world for reading along with six other countries. Experts in favor of the Phonics methods cite studies funded by the National Institute of Health that stated changing the teaching of reading from Whole Language to Phonics reduces the occurrence of reading disabilities. Deciding who is right will require the wisdom of Solomon.