Clarke, P and Taylor, L 2020
The extent to which children’s reading experiences influence their writing production is not often well understood. It is imperative that the connections between these literacy practices are elucidated to inform the development of stimulating curricula and to support children’s development. This paper presents new data and key findings from a project investigating relationships between children’s free choice reading and writing in children aged 9–10 years. The data were collected in two primary schools in northern England, using mixed methods. Through this research the authors demonstrate that the writing that children choose to do is influenced by the texts they encounter as readers in terms of content, text type and linguistic style. These findings highlight the importance of providing children with opportunities to freely choose and create texts and recognising the wide variety of text experiences that children bring to their classroom learning.
First published 26 November 2020
Link to Touchstones: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 10.