S5 E10 Research to the Classroom - Connecting Reading and Writing Part 2 (Practical Application)

In our last episode we explored the research behind integrating reading and writing instructions , looking at models like the Interactive Dynamic Literacy Model , and understanding the shared knowledge and strategic processes that underpin both sets of skills . Today we're getting practical .

I'm going to share five key evidence-informed strategies for meaningfully connecting reading and writing across your school , and these aren't just add-ons to your existing practice . They represent shifts in how we conceptualise literacy instruction so that we can get stronger outcomes for all students .

So strategy number one is to integrate reading and writing in phonics instruction . This one is probably the easiest of them all . So this is about building foundational skills , essentially in word level reading and spelling .

Traditionally , we've taught phonics primarily for reading , but research shows that integrating writing into phonics instruction creates a powerful reciprocal effect .

When we have students write the words during a phonics lesson , we're not only helping them cement their phoneme-grapheme correspondence , but we're helping them to build patterns and recognition of those patterns in their mind for recognising words when they read .

To make this even more powerful , we put it into the context of simple sentences and that helps give us the full experience . When teaching new phoneme- grapheme correspondences, have students both read and write words containing this pattern . And before we do that , let's make sure that they're practicing

both recognising and recalling to write the graphemes themselves .

So if you're teaching the AI pattern , as in RAIN , you will have students say A when you show them the card with the A and the I on it, you'll have them write the A , and I like to have the students say A as they write it over and over , not for a hundred minutes , but just for a moment or two , maybe a minute , so that they get a full multisensory

experience . Remember , multisensory does not have to involve shaving cream and sand . So we're going to recognise the A , we're also going to write it . This is an opportunity for you to notice letter formation and where you might need to do some firming up of that formation for ease of writing as well .

You'll also have students read words with this pattern and in decodable texts . So we're just going to have the words on their own and then they're going to practice them in decodable sentences that contain graphemes and high frequency irregular words they already know .

We're also going to have students write these words and then build on this with some simple sentence application . These activities mean that you do not need to have a separate spelling program that sits differently from your phonics; your phonics program here is your spelling .

This two-way street between reading and spelling helps students develop stronger orthographic mapping . That means that they're mapping words to their long-term memory . And remember, the context is important , so we're going to have students deal with this at grapheme level , at word level and at simple sentence .

As students write words , they have to segment them, segment the sounds or the phonemes, and then match them to the letters . So they have to say the word themselves , pronounce it , then attach the graphemes to the sounds that they say and write them down . All of this reinforces those very patterns that they need to recognise when they're reading .

Graham and Santagelo's 2014 meta-analysis found that spelling instruction improved not just spelling , but also word reading , and it improved comprehension . Ehri's research also showed that instruction in word reading via phonics enhanced spelling and vice versa . So the take-home message here is don't separate phonics for reading from phonics for spelling .

While they are different skills , they are two sides of that same coin and we've learned from the previous episode that they draw on the same knowledge for both . Integrating word reading and word spelling makes both of them stronger .

Strategy two is use rich text as a foundation for text-based units , and this second strategy centers on the use of high quality texts . So when we're thinking about an updated approach to literacy instruction that responds to research , high quality text has a central place . It hasn't gone anywhere . We haven't done literacy because we've taught phonics .

We must work with those high quality texts . Now these texts can form a foundation for both reading comprehension and writing instruction . So , rather than teaching reading and writing as separate blocks , design text-based units where students read and analyse a high-quality stimulus text .

They learn about the craft of writing , as well as things like text structure , by examining the text or using it as a jumping off point for learning , and then use that text as the stimulus for both comprehension activities and writing tasks that focus on those same similar

structures or features . So the key difference from traditional mentor texts is that we're not just asking students to imitate what they see .

Instead , we're explicitly teaching the elements of the text being studied and providing a gradual release of responsibility , explicit teaching model for students that guides them through the process of learning about how to write and learning to respond to texts .

So , for example , if you're studying a narrative text like the Velveteen Rabbit in year five or six , you might analyse how the author develops characters through description and dialogue , explicitly teach techniques for character development and then guide students to incorporate similar techniques in their own writing .

This approach creates natural connections between reading and writing at the text level , while ensuring students have the scaffolding they need to be successful . If you're using our text-based units , you have this built in . It's the exact approach that we use in our work .

Strategy three is to distribute writing across the curriculum and the school day , and I've spoken about this in a previous episode called Help my Students Aren't Writing Enough . This third strategy addresses a common challenge: finding enough time for writing .

Instead of confining writing to the literacy block and having the literacy block do all the heavy lifting , spread those writing opportunities across the curriculum and across the day .

The research shows that writing about learning does two important things: it improves the quality of students' writing and it enhances recall and learning of the content that you want them to learn . So this gives you the double benefit: students improve as writers while deepening their understanding of content .

But I have to say here, it's not just about giving students time to have a pen or pencil in their hand . We can't expect them to get better at things we haven't taught them yet .

So we need to be mindful that if we're asking students to use particular structures or features to write about learning , that we've actually taught those structures or features first, and know that the students are able to apply what they've learned independently .

Practical approaches to this include: writing responses to learning situations across subject areas , summarising main points of lessons , writing to explore

and develop thinking about content , and doing things that have been described as a brain dump . So write down everything you know . So when you do that , you're also getting in some retrieval there as well . So again , you're getting bang for your buck in your instruction . Students can answer short questions about content and take notes in age-appropriate ways .

So we want to be careful that we're not just pushing down the note-taking we would expect in secondary school down into a year two classroom . But we can get students to represent their thinking throughout learning in a variety of ways . When planning with teaching teams identify where writing can meaningfully support learning in different curriculum areas .

This doesn't mean adding more to an already full curriculum, it means using writing as a tool to deepen the learning that's already happening . And , as I said before , the literacy block shouldn't do all the heavy lifting in reading and writing .

By distributing writing across the day , you're breaking it into shorter , more manageable chunks that still provide substantial practice . Strategy four is ensure that we are teaching prerequisite skills to automaticity or fluency , depending on what they are .

So the fourth strategy here focuses on developing automaticity in both reading and writing , in lifting words from the page and putting words onto the page . In order for students to write well , handwriting and letter formation must be automatic , spelling must be automatic and sentence construction must be fluent , and the same goes for the reading side .

We need to be able to effortlessly lift most words from the page and have robust strategies to figure out what's going on when we encounter words that we're unfamiliar with . When these lower level skills become automatic , cognitive resources are freed up for the higher level processes like comprehension and composition .

As Steve Graham notes , sentence production has to be fluent to attend to high level concerns . So ,

once again , just giving students the pencil or the pen and giving them time to write is not going to help them be a better multi-paragraph text level writer , and giving children opportunity to read silently to themselves is not the same as instruction in reading .

So we can build these foundational skills with regular brief practice sessions , systematic instruction , sentence level work , where students construct , combine and manipulate sentences , but also examine sentences to unpack their meaning and talk about them with a partner .

It all starts with oral language , though , so we can build from vocabulary instruction through to oral sentence construction , with lots of talk before we ask students to write . The same goes for reading . So building vocabulary helps students in the comprehension and in the writing , and you don't need masses of time to do this .

We just need to be intentional and hold space for it , and that might mean letting something go that you've been doing that's nice , but maybe isn't leading you to the same strong outcomes that we could be getting .

The fifth strategy is to use a hierarchical framework for literacy development , understanding that we need to build on lower order skills to achieve the higher order skills .

So drawing on models like the interactive dynamic literacy model , we can conceptualise literacy development as a structure with the foundation of the domain general cognitive skills: working memory , inhibitory control and attention . So this is about how do I manage myself , how do I organise my thoughts ? How do I manage to remember what's being talked about ?

Then there are the emergent literacy skills , and I spoke earlier in this episode about the phonics work being the foundation for reading and for spelling .

Frameworks like this that build from the simple to complex , help us identify where student skills might be breaking down , target instruction at the appropriate level and understand how different skills support each other . This makes looking at data a whole different ballgame , because we're not just looking for a final score . We're

looking to see: does the student have similar skills in reading and writing in this area ? So , are our students able to both recognise and recall graphemes ? Are our students able to comprehend particular sentence structures and also produce them ?

If we're seeing a mismatch , that gives us wonderful depth of understanding about where we can improve what we're doing in the classroom and beef up certain elements of instruction . So when students struggle with written composition , we can be looking at transcription skills , the handwriting and the spelling .

If they're struggling with accuracy , then we can be looking at teaching those parts of words that they need , remembering that when we teach that content , both for recognition or reading and for spelling or the encoding , we're going to benefit all of it .

When we teach spelling , we're not just making the students more accurate spellers , we're also making them more accurate readers . All of this enables us to provide targeted support at the appropriate level , recognising that strengthening the foundational skills and the pillars of oral language and syntax will support the development of the higher level skills .

What does it mean , then , to bring it all together ? Well , with these five strategies integrating reading and writing in phonics instruction , using rich texts as the foundation for text-based work , distributing writing across the curriculum , teaching prerequisites and using that hierarchical framework, we start to see how the literacy block is like a permaculture garden .

Everything has more than one purpose and is interconnected . The key to success here is intentionality . So , rather than seeing reading and writing as separate subjects competing for time , we can recognise that the interconnectedness of this enables us to plan instruction that is way more efficient than having that hour of reading and that hour of writing .

This can mean that we can align curriculum documents to highlight reading-writing connections , provide professional learning that builds teachers' understandings of these connections . We can create assessment systems that look at reading and writing development as connected rather than as separate .

We can plan text-based units that integrate reading and writing in meaningful ways and we can establish consistent language and approaches across grades . The goal here isn't to try and do more . It's to work smarter by recognising the shared foundations of reading and writing and then designing instructions that build both at the same time .

It can feel a little confusing and teachers will often say can you just tell me what to do ? And if that's where you and your school are sitting in this right now , that's okay . You don't have to know everything , but you can take some simple steps to get started .

If you've noticed that your phonics instruction has more reading than it does spelling , well , just beef up the spelling bit .

If you're recognising that you're spending a lot of time reading and analysing text , but not necessarily spending a lot of time unpacking the elements of syntax and grammar that helps students not just understand text but also write better well you can just beef up the other element .

You don't have to be perfect in this, you just need to have the idea in mind that we want to get better at integrating the two of these things . In the next episode , we're going to hear from a school leader who has worked with her school to implement these approaches , and we're going to hear from her what it looks like in a real world context .

Research to the Classroom is all about just that helping us understand the why of what we're doing , the what we can be doing and the how of how to bring it to life in a realistic way . Remember , perfection is the enemy of progress . We're not looking for perfection in the next five minutes, in fact , I don't think we're looking for perfection at any time .

But what we are looking to do is to take those meaningful steps that are going to help move our instruction , and therefore our student outcomes , in the right direction . Thanks for listening to this episode of the Structured Literacy Podcast . Until I see you next time , happy teaching , bye .