Reading & Writing Are Intricately Connected
By: Sarah Stratton When I taught two freshman English courses in the early 2000’s–one was focused on writing about reading and the second about reading about writing. What the college courses point out is this–we are better readers when we analyze and write about what we read, and we are better at writing when we analyze the author’s craft of writing. We can’t separate them; when we do, our students' ability to grow as readers and writers is limited. We already understand that reading is a high impact practice in growing readers. With the huge number of words students need to gain each year to stay at grade level–2000-3000, word study isn’t going to cut it. While reading, students can automatically acquire words once they understand the words–which generally requires 8-12 exposures. (That is why staying on a topic for an extended time is optimal–one is more apt to “see” a word in text multiple times.) Do we understand, however, that writing is also impactful in reading growth? Wh...