To Improve Reading, Teach Writing

Post submitted by Educational Leadership Editor Deborah Perkins-Gough

"We need to stop pussyfooting around about writing!" That was the unequivocal message delivered by Steve Graham, lead author of the Alliance for Excellent Education/Carnegie Corporation report Writing to Read: Evidence for How Writing Can Improve Reading, at a panel discussion on April 14 in Washington, D.C.

We know that writing is a core skill (90 percent of white-collar workers and 80 percent of blue-collar workers say that writing is important to their job success), and we know how to teach writing effectively. Then why do students receive so little writing instruction after grade 4, especially in the content areas?

Most educators know intuitively that writing skills and reading skills are interdependent. But the new report is the first meta-analysis providing experimental evidence that requiring students to do more writing and teaching them specific writing skills improves students' reading achievement.

"No Time to Teach Writing"

Panelist Tanya Baker, director of national programs for the National Writing Project, lamented that the report's findings swim against the tide of the last 10 years of national education policy, when accountability demands have left many teachers feeling that "there is no time to teach writing." 

Is that tide turning? One hopeful sign is that the draft Common Core Standards (available at www.corestandards.org) place renewed emphasis on writing across the curriculum. Graham's report, which provides quantitative research evidence of the benefits of writing instruction, may help push schools in a new direction—one that will result in more meaningful, rigorous learning.

What's the state of writing instruction at your school?