Reading and writing are foundational elements of any child's education. However, the two are not entirely separate subjects, with reading ability having a direct impact on one's writing skills. Below, learn more about this relationship and how to integrate it more fully into your child's education.

The Connection Between Reading and Writing

These two subjects inform one another, and the skills a child learns in one often enhances their understanding and increases their ability in the other. As a child learns to read, they discover how language is used and presented and how text is structured, as well as what individual letters look like. Then, when they sit down to write, they tend to have a deeper grasp of how to create letters, words, and sentences.

The relationship goes the other way, too. When a child writes, they develop their phonemic awareness. This is the term educators use to describe one's ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds in words. The growth of this skill is linked to reading improvement, as the child is better able to recognize and distinguish written words and the sounds they make when presented as parts of a larger text.

How to Use Reading to Improve Writing Skills

An easy way to use reading to improve writing is to find a literary genre your child enjoys. This might be anything from fairy tales to animal stories to whimsical poetry. When you immerse your child in a specific genre, they learn its unique language and structure and build their reading skills and comprehension. Having them create their own stories in the same genre requires them to carry these elements over from the printed text to their own words as they write.

Another option is to identify a reading area in which the child has trouble, such as difficulty recognizing certain words or making the correct sounds that correspond with certain words. Find simple texts that offer plenty of examples of these words or sounds so the child has more opportunity to focus on these problem areas; then, they can use the book as a model to write letters, words, and stories of their own and more effectively.

The education professionals at Reading in Preschool understand the crucial link between reading and writing. For over 15 years, they have been serving preschoolers, kindergarteners, and first and second graders throughout New York City, NY. Their tutors use a unique reading method that increases a child's skills and confidence. Call (917) 723-1159 to enroll, or visit them online to explore their reading programs.