The Reading-Writing Connection

Write as you read and you will discover

that you have joined a community of men
and women who have found that they
can play with language in such a way
that it makes meaning of their world, and
that meaning can be shared by readers of
their place and beyond, of their time and
afterward. By writing and reading, we
learn to share and through that sharing
we escape ignorance and isolation so that
we can continue a lifetime of learning.
Donald Murray, Pulitzer Prize winner, 1984
Writing is one of the most important ways to
ensure that all students master the basic skills,
allowing them freedom to express their own
concerns and build upon their special interests.
Reading experts have become convinced that
the full development of literacy skills can occur
only when students do a lot of writing as well
as a lot of reading. They have also observed
that this skill should be developed as early as
grade one. Children write a lot when they are
encouraged and are expected to write about
things they want to write about. They are
interested in writing when they are properly
motivated and when they derive satisfaction
from the feedback.
According to Sealey (1979), writing is a complex
symbolic representation of a person’s thoughts
and images. It is indicative of the search for
meaning and reveals the degree of knowing. It
is closely related to the internal manipulation of
direct firsthand experiences and vicarious
experiences through reading. Residual images
of experiences are stored in children’s minds
and are first transformed into inner speech. The
transliteration of this symbolic from into that of
writing shall be a struggle in the early stages of
development, and his/her work will be a pale
shadow of what a child really thinks and feels.
It is traditional that reading (decoding) should be
taught ahead of writing (encoding) but some
innovative approaches are beginning to reverse
this order. An example is the language
experience approach (LEA) in which the teacher
provides the class with common experience to
talk about. He/She takes them on a field trip to
the zoo to observe the different animals-their
shape, size, color, means of locomotion, eating
habits, and other characteristics. When the
children go back to the classroom, the teacher,
asks them to recall their experiences. Through
skillful questioning, he/she elicits sentences,
riddles, or little stories which he/she first writes
on the chalkboard and, later, on a chart.
The stories, poems and riddles written
cooperatively by the teacher and the class
become their reading materials for several
days. Note the rich possibilities for teaching
basis sentence structures, parts of speech,
tenses, punctuation, spelling, capitalization,
noting details, sequence, and other reading-
writing skills in the following material:
 At the Zoo
Yesterday our class went to the zoo.
We saw three large elephants eating peanuts.
They have long trunks that move up and down.
Swimming in a pond nearby were three crocodiles.
Big scales covered their bodies and tails.
Across the fence was a tall giraffe.
It was black and orange with a long neck.
The giraffe was eating the leaves of a tall tree.
From the monkey island we went to the birdhouses.
What beautiful colors those birds have!
Lovebirds and parrots have green, gold and red feathers.
Peacocks have green, yellow, and purple fantails.
The owls, swallows, and the mayas are brown.
Blue, white, and gray doves flew around looking for food.
On the ground were some grains: rice, corn, palay.
Finally we watched the sea lions diving into the pond.
They played ball and swam around.
The keeper fed them with fresh fish.
Nearby was a large aquarium.
Pretty goldfish and carps swam to and fro.
Other kinds of fish hid among tiny rocks and plants.
We learned about many animals at the zoo.

Follow-up activities include games in word

building, spelling bees, guessing, riddling,
drawing pictures and writing stories under
them, reading fables and other stories about
animals, and creating little poems.
Some teachers have adapted the framed
paragraph strategy to develop the four
important skills in language learning: reading,
writing, speaking and listening.

Some suggested steps:

1. You may choose a reading selection from a
basal reader, science text, or social studies
material and prepare a skeletal paragraph
similar to the following example. Better still,
choose an interesting topic based on the
student’s experience:
 The Picnic
I enjoyed the day when my friends and I had a
picnic. It was (when). My friends, (who), (who),
and (who) went to the (where). We brought
some (what), (what), and (what). (Who) placed
the (what) on the (where). We sat down
(where) and ate our (what). While eating, we
talked about things happened in (where)
(when). We laughed heartily at (what) because
(why). After eating we watched (who/(what).
We saw (what). We also played (what) and
(what). Then at (when we (what) and went
home (how), tired but happy.
2. Have the class read the paragraph silently before
discussing its main topic.
3. Then have them read aloud the paragraph sentence by
sentence and stimulate suggestions for completing it
through class discussion.
4. Have the students choose appropriate words, phrases,
or clauses from word lists written on the chalkboard, on
a chart, or on flash cards. Those in higher grades may
use the dictionary or thesaurus.
5. Have them write the entire framed paragraph on their
paper.
6. Have several students read aloud their completed
paragraphs exactly as written. Stimulate critical and
creative thinking by fostering discussion about word
choice or the accuracy of details.