The Reading & Writing Process

The Reading Process

The key features of the reading process are:

1. Pre-reading-this stage consists of activating the interest of the intended reader(s) in the book. This may be accomplished by providing a purpose for the assigned reading or previewing the text with the student(s).

2. Reading- this stage may be exercised in various methods such as shared, guided, independent, buddy and aloud reading.

3. Responding- can be exercised by instructing the students to write in a journal, use grand conversations, flag and tag activities, or several other activities.

4. Exploring-visiting the selected read by means of instructing student(s) to re-read the selection, examine the author's craft, focus on new vocabulary words that are within the selected read, and participating in minilessons.

5. Applying-challenge the student(s) in order to deepen their interpretation and value of the reading experience. Assign projects that will assist them to make the mental correlations with the reading experience and their personal lives that will promote a personal growth such as identifying and addressing a social injustice or cause them to be motivated to further research the author, the theme, or subject matter as it affects their life directly or indirectly.

The Writing Process

The writing process consists of five parts. The five parts are:

1. Pre-writing-this first part is where the minds of ther reader(s) are stimulated on the topic and are captured on paper. Students are encouraged to brainstorm, outline the topic(s), discuss the subject matter and to explore their thoughts and ideas. The purpose of pre-writing is to organize the student's thoughts.

2. Drafting- this is the handwritten draft of the topic(s). There will be three copies at this part of the process. Students are encouraged to handwrite these drafts without editing or revisions.

3. Revision-this part of the writing process is where attention is placed on sentence structure, elaboration, using adjectives, active verbs, etc. Ideally, the draft will be reviewed by a peer and/or the teacher.

4. Editing-this is the stage focused on grammatical rules to include proper noun-verb agreement, correct spelling and punctuation. This should be reviewed an individual other than the student, such as a peer and/or teacher.

5. Publishing-is the final stage where the draft is actually produced with some sort of media. This could be limited to the classroom as part of a teacher's cirriculum via paper and pen or it may be used as a display, presented to the intended recipient (school principal or councilperson) or perhaps published as a blog. :-)


I was introduced to the writing process as early as sixth grade. The introduction was made very simple so that a class of sixth graders could comprehend the ideas; however, the writing process was faithfully taught by every English teacher from sixth grade to my final senior year in high school. I consider myself blessed to have been graced with awesome English teachers that shared the same teaching philosophy despite their various teaching styles.

In nineth grade, my English teacher provided the class with a packet of five differently colored sheets of paper. On each page, he provided an elaborate explanation to each component of the writing process. Also included on each sheet were most commonly made mistakes that hindered the flow of a paper and suggestions to improve our writing styles and skills. He promised us that we would NEVER forget that packet and on his "scout's honor" swore that we would always use what this packet of information. Twenty plus years later, I admitt that I apply these five components to every writing piece I have published. My favoriate part of the process is brainstorming because it allows me to write with "no holds barred." I truly believe it encourages the mind to go up and beyond in terms of imagination and creativity. During a brainstorming session for my senior year term paper, out of the ideas that I recorded, I was able to create a second paper that was required in one of my other classes. This knowledge has carried on in my mind beyond my high school years. I have applied this know-how my educational career, as well as work and church related life. When I was charged to create and publish monthly newsletters to serve as a communication tool within communities. At first, I will honestly confess that I felt unsure of being able to communicate effectively. I relied on that life saving packet of so many years ago and it made the task easier to accomplish.

Chapter 4 Blog

The emergent literacy process is the current method for teaching reading and writing for kindergarden through second grade students. This process includes research that is child-focused (i.e. the age that researchers found that language readiness begins is much younger than previously believed). Other aspects that are now considered are the cultural and social aspects of language learning as well as their personal understanding of written language. Reading and writing are incorporated in emergent literacy. To "hook" the young minds into reading, teachers may apply the process into the classroom in various ways such as shared reading and/or literature focus units. Children will learn that letters actually have value/meaning through their own experiences in their family life or communities. Children's interest in written language can be introduced or demonstrated by teacher activities that produce classroom rules or labeling supplies, furniture, etc. This reinforces the value of written print. Personally, I believe that labeling is effective as I, to this day, recall my teacher having every item labeled when I walked in to her classroom the very first day of school. She went a step further and color-coded our name tags; red for girls and blue for boys to reinforce what I know I had learned at a very young age. In first grade, my teacher, Mrs. Camacho, would ask us to write her notes during quiet time should we have any questions regarding anything she had talked about in class. I guess, perhaps, they were ahead of their time since this was 30+ years ago.
Emerging into writing is probably one of my favoriate areas. When I faciliated an after school program that included children between the ages of 5 and 11, it was fascinating to see the younger children attempt to immitate the older children's writing and drawings. One of my rules was that they complete their homework before being allowed to have play time and if they were not assigned homework, they must read any book in the room for 20-30 minutes and draw a picture that represented any thing of the story...a character, a setting, or something that occured in the story. This would almost always present an opportunity to interact with the child and assist him or her with spelling or defining a word. This is considered interactive writing. Minilessons is discussed in the final pages of the chapter. Minilessons are geared for children to learn about how reading and writing are used to convey messages and how children behave as readers and writers. The example of a minilesson that the textbook offered is for making predictions. The five parts of the minilesson are: introduction of the topic, sharing examples, providing information, supervising practice and reflection of what was learned. The only activity that I can recollect that is perhaps an example of this type of minilesson is a project that we were asked to do every new year during English class, draw a picture or bring in an item to help as a visual aid to a recollection of what events took place during our summer vacation. After the written part of the project, my classmates would write a summary for each student's story.