Why Reading Matters in Writing

During the first trimester of sixth grade, my daughter was assigned to write a paragraph about a historical figure. That afternoon, when I picked her up from school, she looked frustrated.

"Mom, I don't know what to write," she said.

At first, I assumed she was struggling with writing. After asking a few more questions, however, I realized that writing wasn't the problem. She simply didn't know enough about the historical figure to write about the topic. She had been given a writing assignment before she had the opportunity to build the background knowledge necessary to communicate her ideas.

That evening, we approached the assignment differently. Before she wrote another sentence, we read a short informational text together and watched a brief video about the person's life, accomplishments, and historical significance. We talked about what we had learned, discussed interesting facts, and connected the information to what she already knew.

The next afternoon, when I picked her up from school, her attitude had completely changed.

"I finished my paragraph," she said proudly.

What changed in less than twenty-four hours? It was not her ability to write. She had the ability all along. What changed was her understanding of the topic. Once she had opportunities to read, build background knowledge, and develop her understanding, she finally had something meaningful to say.

As both a literacy educator and a classroom teacher, this experience reminded me of an important lesson: students cannot write about what they do not yet understand. Before students can communicate ideas through writing, they need opportunities to develop those ideas through reading, discussion, and meaningful engagement with content. Reading is not simply an activity that comes before writing, it is the foundation that makes writing possible.

Research in literacy education consistently supports this relationship. Rather than functioning as separate skills, reading and writing develop together, each strengthening the other. Reading exposes students to new vocabulary, academic language, text structures, and disciplinary ways of thinking that they later draw upon in their own writing (Celik, 2019; Kim et al., 2018). Simply put, students learn to write by reading.

This relationship is especially important for multilingual learners. Before students can express their thinking in writing, they need opportunities to encounter language in meaningful contexts. Through reading, students observe how authors organize ideas, construct arguments, and communicate meaning. These experiences provide linguistic models that students can later apply in their own writing. Without meaningful reading experiences, writing can quickly become overwhelming because students are expected to produce language they have not yet had sufficient opportunities to explore.

Reading also supports students' metacognitive development. As students interact with a variety of texts, they begin to recognize how authors make decisions about organization, audience, purpose, and word choice. This awareness allows students to approach writing with greater confidence and intentionality (Teng & Zhang, 2021).

However, meaningful reading does not occur simply because students are given a text. Today's classrooms are linguistically and academically diverse. Students bring different levels of language proficiency, background knowledge, reading experiences, and cultural perspectives. When every student is expected to read the same text in the same way, some learners struggle to access the content while others are not sufficiently challenged. As a result, many students begin writing without fully understanding the ideas they are expected to communicate.

This is where differentiated literacy instruction—and specifically tiered texts—becomes essential. Tiered texts provide multiple pathways for students to access the same essential content while maintaining high academic expectations. Rather than lowering rigor, teachers adjust the linguistic complexity of the reading so every learner can build background knowledge, acquire academic vocabulary, and engage deeply with the content before writing.

Imagine a classroom where every student is exploring the same essential question. One group reads a text supported with visuals, glossaries, and simplified sentence structures. Another group reads the original grade-level text, while a third analyzes a more complex source that extends the learning. Although the texts differ in complexity, every student participates in the same discussion, explores the same big ideas, and responds to the same writing task. The pathway may look different, but the destination remains the same.

When teachers intentionally connect reading and writing through differentiated instruction, they do more than improve literacy outcomes. They create equitable opportunities for every student to think critically, communicate ideas, and demonstrate understanding. Reading is not simply preparation for writing; it is the foundation upon which meaningful writing is built.