Writing to Read: A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Writing and Writing Instruction on Reading

Reading is critical to students’ success in and out of school. One potential means for improving students’ reading is writing. In this meta-analysis of true and quasi-experiments,Graham and Herbert present evidence that writing about material read improves students’ comprehension of it; that teaching students how to write improves their reading comprehension, reading fluency, and word reading; and that increasing how much students write enhances their reading comprehension. These findings provide empirical support for long-standing beliefs about the power of writing to facilitate reading.