Ken Goodman is a now-retired educational researcher, best known for developing the theory underlying the whole language method of reading instruction. He famously argued that reading is a "psycholinguistic guessing game" and that phonics consequently should not be taught. Goodman's initial research was as an assistant professor at Wayne State. During his time at Wayne State, Goodman won a research award which excused him from teaching responsibilities. Wikipedia
The definitive Wikipedia entry for Ken Goodman. Wikipedia is the biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Goodman