15 - Reading to Learn and Reading–Writing Relationships

Summary

Chapter 15: Reading to Learn and Reading-Writing Relationships. This chapter examines research on the close relationship between reading comprehension and writing abilities. The focus of this research has been on how writing can support more advanced reading comprehension, and how engaging students in complex content-based texts and tasks will better prepare students to become both more proficient academic readers and more effective writers. This instructional trend to develop more proficient academic readers and writers is true for both L1 and L2 students, and in both secondary and post-secondary contexts. A third key concept in the reading-writing relationship is the important, but less explored role of content knowledge. The chapter then reviews two specific instructional formats for developing reading-writing relationships: summary writing and synthesis writing. The chapter concludes with implications for instruction.