I think that reading and writing need to be taught together. There is never a time that I can think of when children have not been encouraged to do these two things simultaneously. Writing is part of reading just as reading is part of writing. In order to read or write one must learn how to do the other. I think that the article makes a good point when it says " The word literacy
literally means power over letters—that is, over both writing and reading. But used casually (and in government policy and legislation), literacy tends to mean reading, not writing." When we talk about our literacy block at school so often people are referring to the reading block and not the writing block. I think that for many, myself included, we think that by modeling and using good examples of already written texts (i.e. reading the books to the children or having the children read them) we are working on both skills. Often I find myself skipping parts of my writing lessons because we are so focused on the reading part of the lesson.
When I read the sentence "Students invariably read better if they write first—if they start by writing their own thoughts about a topic that the class will tackle in a text" I thought to myself..DUH that is making a prediction- one of the most commonly used before reading strategies that we use when talking to kids about reading. I never really considered this to be writing however because I think of writing more like the writing process. When considering this to be part of writing rather than reading it reminded me of the readers notebooks that my students this year kept. These were used during our school-wide reading block in which students were able to choose there books and then respond to them in their readers notebooks.
For beginning readers and writers I think that it is important that they do both reading and writing together. If a student is able to listen to a story and then perhaps model what they have heard in their own writing, then I believe that it makes them a more powerful reader and writer. I do not believe that reading and writing can be taught in isolation and that they should be taught together.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I definitely agree that writing and reading go hand in hand. Before a child can read or write, however they do have to have a full understanding in phonemic awareness, as that is the basis for both reading and writing. If a child can't hear the sounds in a word, they won't be able to read or write the word.
I also think about the term "reading block." In our school we call it the "literacy block." Any way you look at it, I think that good teachers teach writing and reading together. One just fits with the other.
Post a Comment