My Reading and Writing Process

The abilities to read and write do not naturally develop in students. Both are the product of learning separate but similar processes. Reading processes help students sustain reading by solving words, monitoring and correcting, gathering information, predicting, maintaining fluency, adjusting to different types of texts. Other processes in reading help students to expand upon the meaning of text. These processes include predicting, making connections and inferences, synthesizing, analyzing, and critiquing (Fountas & Pinnell, 2001). These processes help readers understand and apply concepts that they have read. For writing, processes flow back and forth between prewriting, drafting, revising, proofreading, and publishing work (Fletcher & Portalupi, 2001).

Processes in both reading and writing require students to solve words, maintain fluency, make adjustments and corrections, analyze, critique, and synthesize. While students benefit from being introduced to each of these processes, it is important for educators to remember that each individual will approach reading and writing processes in different ways. Students will excel in some parts of each process, but struggle with others. As an educator, it is important for me to identify how I approach reading and writing processes, along with my struggles and how to address them.

As a reader, I find that I experience different reading processes depending on what I’m reading. For most types of reading, I experience a majority of the processes used to sustain reading. These processes, including solving words, gathering, and maintaining fluency, help me to comprehend what I read. Of the processes used to sustain reading, I find monitoring and correcting the most frustrating. As a newly married individual who teaches full time, and attends grad school, I easily lose track of monitoring my reading as my mind fatigues or wanders to other responsibilities that may require my attention. Often, I will find myself dozing off in a book, or reading page after page, only to realize I remember nothing of what I read. One can imagine that this is frustrating. As I continue to acknowledge this area of frustration, I also look for ways to address it. One thing I try to do when I lose track of my reading, is take a break. Forcing myself to continue reading will not benefit me. Taking a mental and physical break, and returning to re-read the parts I lost track of can help me to better understand what I was too tired or distracted to initially understand.

I notice that I use varying processes to expand meaning of text depending on what my purpose for reading is. For example, I will go through the process of summarizing something I have read if my purpose in reading is to share new information with someone. If I read an educational publication or research about teaching strategies, I will often summarize what I have read to share with my colleagues. The process of analyzing and synthesizing also proves useful when reading educational publications. After reading, I will analyze how a particular article’s suggestions will work in my classroom. I synthesize information when I try to apply what I have read to my classroom. When I read non-education related text, such as cooking magazines, or how-to columns for arts and crafts, I can take what I have read and try to re-create it. These are just a few ways reading processes play out in my day-to-day life.

Similar to my reading processes, I find that my writing process changes depending on what I am writing. When I write for personal purposes, such as in a journal, I may pre-write, or I may just draft. Depending on my mood, my journal entries can consist of stream of consciousness writing, which has no topical focus, to an entry focused on a specific thought or idea that has been floating around in my mind. However, when I write a more formal piece, such as an individualized education plan, work that will be presented to colleagues, or work for graduate school, I pursue a more formal process. In my more formal writing process, I almost always pre-write by brainstorming, researching, and creating a sketch, or outline or my finished piece. Next I write a draft. As I draft, though, I move back and forth to pre-writing, finding new research when I need more information, or jotting down ideas in my outline as they come to me. For me, drafting also involves revising. Every so often, as I draft, I stop, re-read what I’ve written, add, change, and omit, and then continue drafting. Over time, I have been able to comfortably transition between these three parts of my writing process. After I am through with these first three steps, I usually ask my husband to proofread it for me. Once he has done that, I publish it, usually by sharing it with classmates or colleagues, posting it to a blog, or turning it in as an assignment.

Proofreading is the most difficult part of the process for me. One reason for this is that I tend to be in a hurry to just publish a piece, and I feel inconvenienced by the fact that I have to go back and re-read my entire work before I publish it. My coping strategy for this has been to ask my husband to read through to look for mechanical and grammatical errors. However, I am beginning to realize the necessity of proofing my own work in addition to having someone else proof it. Regardless of how skilled my husband is at proofreading my work, he can never approach editing my paper with the full knowledge of my intentions for writing it. Also, taking the time to re-read my own pieces helps me become more familiar with my own writing.

After analyzing my reading and writing processes, I can see that I am living proof that these processes are not linear or restricting. Reading processes do not all apply to all situations for all readers, just as writing processes are not applied the same in all writing situations for all writers. Understanding my reading and writing processes can help me emphasize the reality of individual reading and writing processes to my students. Acknowledging my struggles with these processes can help me empathize with the struggles my students face in developing their own processes.


Reference List

Fletcher, R. & Portalupi, J. (2001). Writing workshop: The essential guide. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Fountas, I. C. & Pinnell, G. S. (2001). Guiding readers and writers: Teaching comprehension, genre, and content literacy. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.