Reading-Writing Connections

I read Hirvela’s chapters on reading-writing connections and linking reading and writing through reader-response theory with much interest, both as a second language writer and second language writing teacher. I personally always thought of the relation between reading and writing in terms of the formula “the more you read, the better writer you become in whatever language”. I also believe that many people share this formula. A formula that my parents taught me in my early schooling years, and which my language teachers never stopped reiterating years and years (for Arabic, French, and then and forever for English). For me reading serves to expand one’s vocabulary base, exposes us to different genres, writing styles, forms, etc. I never thought of reading-writing connection as an established field of research.

Hirvela reports on the growth and development of the field of reading-writing connections in chronological order from early 1980s up until the present. This shows clearly that the field is relatively new and this explains the fact that few studies dealt with this topic. Also, if people take this connection for granted, this then might be another reason.

Stotsky’s (1983) study that Hirvela reports on evidences the formula I lived by throughout my languages learning history and present. Stotsky reported that “the correlational studies show almost consistently that better writers tend to be better readers (of their own writing as well as of other reading material), that better writers tend to read more than poorer writers, and that better readers tend to produce more syntactically mature writing than poorer readers” (p. 636, cited in Hirvela, 2004, p. 13). But I think that Grabe’s (2001) research suggesting that reading and writing should be taught together “by inclusion of reading in a theory of writing instruction and a theory of writing in reading instruction” (Hirvela, 2004, p. 36). They also advocate that the combination of both literacy skills enhances learning in different areas.

Reader-Response Theory (RRT) makes a connection between reading and writing in terms of writing used in connection to what has been read. “[RRT is] an approach to reading that primarily examines and values readers and how readers read texts, not how or why authors wrote them or how they are organized” (p. 46). Reading in this case is not considered as a decoding process but rather as an act of “composing,” and this explains why readers use different “composing processes,” (p. 55) that yield different interpretations. In this vein, Hirvela’s approach to teaching reading using RRT can be best applied in high schools and universities using pre-reading and post-reading activities. These activities will help the teacher to learn more about the strategies students employ to understand texts and what difficulty will they encounter.