5 Ways to Include Writing in Reading Intervention

Over the years, reading has remained in the spotlight of literacy conversations, while writing has often taken a back seat. But one of the most powerful tools we have in literacy instruction is the reciprocity between reading and writing. As Natalie Wexler shares in her article “To Boost Learning, Weave Writing Activities Into Regular Instruction,” we cannot write deeply about topics we do not have knowledge about.  

Writing is expressive and therefore gives us a vessel for deepening our understanding of what we read. Often, in literacy intervention work, we are so focused on improving reading outcomes that we can sometimes overlook students’ writing abilities. 

These five strategies offer quick ways to enhance student learning as well as develop student writing through explicit instruction and practice. You can utilize them in any intervention setting.

SENTENCE DICTATION

The first strategy is a variation on the dictated sentences that are often used in intervention work. After students read a decodable text, or even a grade-level text, sentence dictation can allow them to practice using specific vocabulary, sentence structure, or phonics patterns. 

Student input can vary depending on what support is needed to craft the sentence. In this case, you, the teacher, would dictate, or say, a sentence that might include a specific phonics pattern, some words that include review patterns, a specific vocabulary word that students have studied, or a specific structure, such as a conjunction.

These instructional decisions are intentional, allowing students to not only write about their reading but practice phonics skills or develop more complex sentences that include elevated vocabulary.

SENTENCE COMPLETION

A second strategy that allows students to demonstrate comprehension of a text involves using a kernel sentence, or a stem, and then completing the sentence using the conjunctions because, but, and so.  

It is important to teach students how these three conjunctions differ in the meanings they convey. A way to scaffold this strategy is to provide prewritten sentence parts and have students match them to the correct conjunction.

This strategy challenges students to take the information they learned and explain it in three different ways. For examples of this type of writing, a good resource is The Writing Revolution, by Judith Hochman and Natalie Wexler.

SENTENCE EXPANSION

Sentence expansion is another strategy that allows students to demonstrate their understanding while also developing their writing abilities. Give students a subject (the who or what) from the text, and then ask them to expand the sentence by providing the where, when, why, and how, to add details to their writing. 

Each piece should demonstrate further understanding of the text while also developing students’ ability to add details, which creates a more complex and dynamic sentence. 

A scaffold for this type of writing involves providing some of the details, which students can then build from. While students are adding details and expanding their sentences, they are also recalling information they learned from the text.

SENTENCE STARTERS

A fourth strategy I’ve used is sentence starters that introduce a more complex way of writing a sentence. As students become more comfortable with varying their sentence structures, they can move to crafting the entire sentence.

Some possibilities include asking them to include an appositive, or noun/pronoun that comes after a noun, to give more detail or explanation. Another option could be to start with a dependent clause. In this exercise, students are combining their content knowledge as well as developing their writing skills.

PARAGRAPH SHRINKING

One final strategy I’ve used is to have students write a sentence using paragraph shrinking or finding the gist of the text they’ve read. I ask students to find the most important who or what of the paragraph or text and then add the most important thing that happened to create a 10-to-15-word sentence that summarizes the essential information of a paragraph or text. 

Literacy is a merger of reading and writing skills. Both areas need to develop in order for students to be successful. All five of these strategies can support students in demonstrating comprehension, with writing as the expressive output, in an intervention setting. You can scaffold each activity up or down, depending on the varying needs of your students. 

Writing should be a part of every lesson, and using these five strategies allows us to integrate reading and writing so that both areas are woven together each time a student engages with a text.