Teaching Reading and Writing as Integrated Skills

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Teaching Reading and Writing as Integrated Skills

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There is scholarly evidence for integrating the instruction of reading and writing for both native and non-native speakers of English and English as a Second Language (ESL) students. There is also compelling experiential evidence regarding time-on-task required for remedial English and ESL instruction, suggesting that non-native speakers of English need more time, compared to their native-speaking counterparts, to improve their reading and writing proficiencies. It should be noted that ELL students need intensified instruction in both reading and writing, as determined by a standard skills assessment or placement test and screening results. In teaching reading and writing, emphasis should be on the integrated development of reading and writing skills, with special attention paid to developing vocabulary, improving grammar, increasing reading and writing speed, using critical thinking to analyze a diverse range of texts, and producing organized, well-developed essays and reports for a variety of academic purposes.

An intensive six-hour course in reading and writing per week can provide upper-level native speakers of English who score between 65 and 69 on the American College Testing (ACT) Reading Exam and between 50 and 55 on the CUNY Assessment Test in Writing (CATW) Exam an opportunity to fulfill remedial requirements in a pedagogically efficient manner.  Instead of completing two discrete courses in reading and writing taught separately, eligible students will take a single, combined, integrated course, which may permit them to enroll in a greater number of credit-bearing courses while completing remedial requirements.  In addition to moving through course sequences for degrees at a faster pace, students may be able to reap the financial benefits of a single course: a larger portion of financial aid awards and out-of-pocket resources can be preserved for degree-required courses.  In addition, the new university writing exam, the CATW, requires college-level proficiency in both reading and writing, which makes offering a combined course a necessity.  Finally, the research in developmental education clearly supports combined instruction since reading and writing employ similar cognitive processes. As Pettersen notes: “Reading and writing can be differentiated as two sides of literacy, one receptive and one expressive.  However, their core quality is shared.  Both the reader and the writer must actively organize ideas as reader or for the reader.  The basic rhetorical structures that organize the active process are common to both reading and writing.  Teaching them together enhances the power of both.” 







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