Reading-Writing Connections

From Theory to Practice

Mary F. Heller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 1999
• ISBN:
  9781135662844
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Reading-Writing Connections: From Theory to Practice is an extraordinary language arts methods text that enables elementary and middle school teachers to create classroom environments where all students can become lifelong readers and writers. Focusing on developmentally appropriate methods and materials, this remarkably readable book empowers a new generation of teachers to integrate reading, writing, listening, and speaking in K-8 classrooms. Heller's highly accessible writing style makes this book suitable as a primary text for undergraduate and graduate courses in language arts, reading, writing, and literacy. Special features of this second edition include:
* a vision of how to transform cutting-edge theory and research into classroom practice that utilizes integrated language arts instruction;
*a unique developmental perspective with separate chapters on teaching methods and materials for kindergarten, primary (1-3), intermediate (4-6), and middle grades (7-8);
* instructional guidelines that offer generous, detailed suggestions for applying theory to practice, plus "For You to Try" and "For Your Journal" exercises that encourage critical thinking and reflection; and
* a wealth of classroom vignettes, examples of students' oral and written language, illustrations, and figures that accentuate interesting and informative theory, research, and practice. In addition, Reading-Writing Connections offers expanded content on the impact of sociocultural theory and the whole language movement on the teaching of reading and writing across the curriculum; greater emphasis on cultural diversity, including new multicultural children's literature booklists that complement the general children's literature bibliographies; and current information on alternative assessment, emerging technologies, the multiage classroom, reader response to literature, and thematic teaching.

1 BECOMING LITERATE

Reading is when someone can’t hear you, so you write them a letter.

Jamie, age 5

CHAPTER CONCEPTS

Reading, writing, listening, and speaking are the language arts.

How we view reading and writing influences how we teach.

Reading and writing may be defined as skills, products, and processes.

The social aspects of language are important to learning.

Reading and writing provide access to literacy. We learn the value of communication through the written word very early as children struggling to master print in our environment. From the posters on the nursery room wall, to the bedtime storybooks, to the signs around town, letters and words quickly become a part of our consciousness. The need to know what the words mean is at first a curiosity soon replaced by the desire to communicate. We learn to communicate our desires first through listening and oral language, the very foundations of literacy. Ultimately, the acquisition of reading and writing enables us to develop into the unique individuals we are all capable of becoming. To be lifelong readers and writers is our goal as well as the goal of parents and teachers for us. Home and the schools, then, are the main forums for literacy development. The connections that can be made between reading and writing, listening and speaking bond in those arenas.

The primary focus of this book is on the translation of theory and research into effective classroom practice. In this text you will learn how language, cognitive, and social development theory and research can be used to integrate reading, writing, listening, and speaking in the language arts classroom. Chapter 1 provides the foundation for all subsequent chapters, as I first describe the nature of reading and writing. In this context, I also attend to the primacy of oral language and listening during the processes of teaching and learning. Included in this chapter are perspectives on how educators have historically defined reading and writing and ultimately conceptualized the interrelationships among all of the language arts.

In order to fully inform the reader, I provide contrasting definitions and philosophical points of view that influence today’s elementary and middle school language arts instruction. These pedagogical positions range from traditional skillsbased, text-driven models to more holistic, process-oriented approaches associated with integrating the language arts. New to this chapter is a description of the whole-language movement and its impact on classroom instruction across all content areas. The discussion provides a forum for the introduction of important theory into practice issues relative to integrating reading, writing, listening, and speaking. These issues include the importance of prior knowledge (schema theory); the construction of meaning (response theory); the structure of text (genre studies); the concept of learning to learn (metacognitive theory); and the social nature of language acquisition and development (sociocultural theory).

As students read and write to learn, the processes of comprehending and composing reinforce one another.

As teachers of language, we have the power to create an environment where all children can become literate, regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic background. The power is manifest in pedagogically sound methods and procedures that have as their base the best of all possible theory and research. To empower teachers and learners is the ultimate goal of this book.

THE NATURE OF READEING AND WRITING

Alternative Viewpoints

Both reading and writing are skills, products, or processes, depending on the theoretical point of view. Differing viewpoints lead to alternative definitions of reading and writing. For example, reading and writing are complex unitary skills made up of numerous subskills acquired through instruction. Reading and writing are the products of skills acquisition, with comprehension and composition being the observable elements. Reading and writing are processes an individual undertakes to construct meaning from print or to construct meaning using print, respectively. How we view reading and writing influences how we teach these essentials of literacy.

Regardless of our description, the interrelationships among the language arts are complex, are not readily apparent or clearly understood, and yet today are often taken for granted (Langer, 1986). To understand how reading and writing are connected, it is important first to discuss them separately and to look at the differences as well as the similarities. Ironic as this may seem, the traditional viewpoint is that reading and writing are “basic skills,” treated as separate subjects in the schools. Reading is a receptive skill, whereas writing is expressive in nature. This very viewpoint is what has influenced textbook contents as well as classroom methods for generations. To create skillful readers and writers is the ultimate goal of schooling. The language of skills remains integral to pedagogy. Yet much is to be learned from each perspective as we begin to apply theory to practice.

The Skills of Reading and Writing. Traditional language arts programs support the notion of sequentially ordered reading and writing skills. The global skills of reading include word recognition and comprehension. The skills of writing are more extensive and incorporate grammar, usage, and spelling, as well as matters of style and forms of discourse. Whether it is intended or not, scope and sequence charts imply that language development through reading and writing is hierarchical in nature. First we learn to recognize the alphabet letters; then we learn to decode words. First we learn to write a sentence; then we learn to write a paragraph. However, there is little evidence to support the idea that a true hierarchy of skills exists in reading (Downing, 1982; Samuels, 1976).

Skills approaches necessitate breaking down reading or writing into more manageable and, theoretically, more teachable units. William Gray’s (1960) skills model of reading suggests that individuals learn to read by first matching sounds to letters before progressing to whole-word identification. Though Gray discusses the component parts of reading separately, he nevertheless believes that reading is a complex unitary skill made up of numerous subskills that not only are closely interrelated but also function simultaneously. The concept of automaticity is fundamental to reading skills models. Fluency in reading is achieved through instantaneous recognition of words without conscious effort. Automatic word recognition allows the reader to give full attention to the ultimate goal of reading: comprehension of the text (LaBerge & Samuels, 1976).

Traditional models of writing also focus on the parts in relation to the whole. Richard Young (1978) describes the characteristics of the current traditional paradigm that has dominated the content and organization of hundreds of anthologies and composition texts for decades. The distinguishing features of the traditional rhetorical paradigm include “…the analysis of discourse into words, sentences, and paragraphs; the classification of discourse into description, narration, exposition, and argument; the strong concern with usage (syntax, spelling, punctuation) and with style (economy, clarity, emphasis)…” ( p.).

Arthur Applebee (1986) notes that textbooks perpetuate traditional models. Composition textbooks are the primary influence in classroom writing instruction. We need take only a cursory look at elementary or secondary language arts texts to see the truth in his observation. The lists of writing skills go on for pages. The complexity of writing is highlighted by lessons that first break down written expression into component parts and then proceed to the application of newly acquired skills. The automatic application of skills during the composing process equals success in writing. Theoretically, if students know the rules of grammar, they will use them correctly when writing a sentence. However, decades of research into the teaching of writing reveals that knowledge of grammatical rules alone does not improve one’s writing (Hillocks, 1987). The sum of the parts do not necessarily equal the whole product or process in writing or reading.

On the surface, a skills viewpoint appears to eliminate the need to make connections among the language arts. What do word recognition and comprehension skills have in common with sentence construction, paragraph development, spelling, grammar, punctuation, or text structure? Studies in the 1960s and 1970s attempted to show a correlation between the skills of reading and writing as measured by standardized achievement tests. Sandra Stotsky (1983) reported a number of research projects in which better reading comprehension and vocabulary scores were positively related to good-quality writing as determined by a variety of measures, including normed tests of writing, holistic assessments, composition writing scales, sentence length and complexity, and grammar and usage achievement test scores. The more skillful readers appeared to be the more skillful writers.

The better reader/better writer phenomenon was most extensively researched and documented by Walter Loban (1963, 1976), who undertook longitudinal studies of children’s language development as they progressed from kindergarten through grade 12. Loban was concerned not only with reading and writing abilities but also with the children’s oral language and listening. At the end of his thirteen-year study, Loban described language-proficient children:

They had an overview, a plan for their talk and writing that showed coherence and unity. They spoke not only freely, fluently and easily, but also effectively, using a rich variety of vocabulary…. They were, themselves, attentive and creative listeners…. Both in reading and in written composition, the proficient subjects excelled, and they were superior in using connectors—like meanwhile, unless…those superior in oral language in kindergarten and grade one before they learned to read and write are the very ones who excel in reading and writing by the time they are in grade six. (pp.)

Studies examining the influence of reading on writing and of writing on reading generally support the idea that growth in one area will probably carry over into the other. In an essay on the value of connecting reading and writing, Tierney and Leys (1986) conclude that research to date shows that “…the general correlation between reading and writing is moderate and fluctuates with age, schooling, and other factors” (p. ). They nevertheless agree that certain reading and writing experiences have an influence on reading and writing performance. Some influential activities have as their basis a skills viewpoint. For example, highlighting the structural characteristics of a text before reading appears to influence the writing of similarly structured texts (McGee & Richgels, 1985). Teaching expository text structure as well as story grammars also influences both written composition and reading comprehension (Gordon & Braun, 1984; Taylor & Beach, 1984). Chapters 3 through 6 contain practical applications of text structure theory and research.

The Products of Reading and Writing. The product view of reading and writing is the direct result of a skills orientation. The ultimate reading product is comprehension, which occurs automatically as a result of word recognition, or decoding (Fries, 1962). This view of reading comprehension dominated reading research in the 1960s and 1970s and still influences classroom instruction today (J.D.Cooper, 1986). Read the story and answer the comprehension questions is a familiar sequence of events, which is very much a part of a product-centered language arts curriculum. We test reading comprehension through questioning. The product is then quantifiable, and reading comprehension scores represent what the student understands about the text.

The products of writing are visible: the sentence, the paragraph, the essay, the short story. Traditional approaches to writing instruction focus on written products and take a prescriptive stance (Applebee, 1986). Teachers evaluate the written product, judge its form and content, according to a set criteria, and prescribe remedial action if necessary. Society holds the perfected final written product in high esteem because it is the very essence of literacy—communication through the written word.

Comparing the products of reading and writing renders a limited understanding of the nature of reading and writing connections. Better readers are often better writers and vice versa, as measured by quantifiable factors (Stotsky, 1983). Skills and product-oriented definitions also limit research implications for classroom instruction. We rely on the idea that facility in one area carries over into another. But mere practice in reading does not guarantee quality writing. Why are better readers better writers? What happens during reading that is similar to what happens during writing? These are the kinds of questions researchers began to ask in the mid- to late 1970s as a shift in the theoretical views of reading and writing emerged.

Changing Perspectives

Schema Theory. Current theories of reading and writing go beyond the skills and products perspectives to take into consideration the interactive nature of language acquisition and development. Schema theoretic models of reading, for example, describe how prior knowledge of the world enables readers to construct meaning from print (Anderson, 1984). Schema (or schemata) refers to the structures that we use to organize information in our memory (Rumelhart, 1981). According to schema theory, reading comprehension is an interactive process whereby the reader relates already existing knowledge to the meanings in the text. During the process, readers reconstruct the author’s message and add to schemata present in memory. So d...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• FOREWORD
• PREFACE
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• 1. BECOMING LITERATE
• 2. THE EMERGENCE OF READING AND WRITING
• 3. READERS AND WRITERS IN THE PRIMARY GRADES
• 4. COMPREHENDING AND COMPOSING IN THE INTERMEDIATE GRADES
• 5. THE MIDDLE SCHOOL READER AND WRITER
• 6. CONCEPT FORMATION: DEVELOPING READING AND WRITING VOCABULARIES
• 7. ASSESSING THE LANGUAGE ARTS
• 8. THE LITERACY-RICH CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT
• APPENDIX A: MAKING PUPPETS
• APPENDIX B: MAKING BOOKS
• APPENDIX C: HANDWRITING MODELS
• APPENDIX D: THEMATIC UNITS
• REFERENCES