Jane’s Reading Diary

Saturday, July 8, 2022 2:56pm

Jane Parker

Hello my friends! I’m very bored at home so I decided to start reading some books to kill the
time. I just randomly saw a video today about a teenage student who did a 30-day reading
challenge and found out after 30 days of reading every day, her other skills such as critical
thinking, writing and vocabs have all improved. I think that sounds cool! I also had a question
I’m wondering: Is reading really related to writing skills and if so, does it really help improve
writing?

Since I’m bored at home, I want to try that challenge too to see if I can improve myself. I’ll keep
updating my progress here! 🤪

Comments:
ad.pamela July 8, 2022 3:47pm : You should try The Giver, it’s a good book!
Reply from Jane Parker July 8, 2022 5:29pm: Thanks! I’ll look at it.

m_kalper July 8, 2022 4:19pm: I just read an article today by a scholar called Ozen Yıldırım. In the
article, she mentions that student’s writing skills improves a lot with the amount of the books
they’ve read and there is a positive influence of reading on students’ writing skills too. In order
to test this theory, she conducted some experiments. The socioeconomic level and other
factors were all controlled. The experiment included students completing a reading
comprehension measurement test and then completing a writing exercise. The students who
had better reading comprehension also wrote better. Their grammar was more correct, the
sentences flowed more smoothly, and the vocabulary was more advanced. The socioeconomic
level and other factors were all controlled, thus reading skills influence writing skills. In case
you’re interested in knowing more about what she said, I’ll put the link here!
Reply from Jane Parker July 8, 2022 5:30pm: Wow! Thank you so much! I’ll definitely look at
it.

Tuesday, July 12, 2022 11:38am

Jane Parker

So I’ve started to read a book called The Giver as recommended by my friend and I think I like it
so far. At first, I find it hard to sit there for several hours and to concentrate on the book with so
many words. But the more I read, the more interesting I found the book and I think I can finish
it in a week.
I think I’m gonna try read another genre like newspaper or magazines after I finish The Giver.
Trying new things is always fun, and they might all help improve my skills. :)

I also spent some time exploring some articles that talked about how reading proficiency affects
writing skills. I want to share my findings with you guys. In Yıldırım’s article, it is also mentioned
that students who live in homes with many books are better readers and consequently, better
writers. I think it makes a lot of sense to me because how can someone that’s been growing up
in an environment full of books not like reading? And how can their writings not have been
affected at all by so many years of accumulated vocabs and sentence structures? Luckily, my
dad put a lot of books in the mini library at our house, so maybe it’s time for me to spend more
time there, right? 🧐

Wednesday, July 13, 2022 12:43pm

Jane Parker

Maybe I should go to the library more often to read or just explore my area of interest! They
have so many more books than my mini library haha.
📚📚📚

Comments:
vvincent.c July 13, 2022 12:59pm: Yea you should! I like going to the library and read too. I read an
article in my English class, from a scholar called Ibnu Mas’ud. He recommends one way to
improve education and writing levels is to go to the library and read books that are about
different subjects.
Reply from Jane Parker July 13, 2022 1:36pm: Oh I think I know what I should do tomorrow
hehe. But why about many different subjects?
Reply from vvincent.c July 13, 2022 12:59pm: Because the more you read, the more educated
you’ll be. And after reading many sentences you’ll also find it much easier to form your own.
This will come naturally. You will also be able to understand which sentences flow smoothly and
are grammatically correct because you’re always exposed to correct writing in the books they
read. You might find more information in the article.

Sunday, July 17, 2022 4:09pm

Jane Parker

Here’s an update: I finished the Giver! 🥳 Now I think reading is really fun and entertaining. I
also noticed that from the beginning, my reading pace got faster. Sometimes I also read the
daily newspaper. It is a different genre than the book but I’m getting used to it and liking it.
There’s also a good way to find out if my writing skills improved. I have an SAT test next week
and I’ll find out if my writing score will be higher than the one I took two months ago. So, we’ll
see!

Comments:
ad.pamela July 17, 2022 4:27pm: That’s great! Maybe when you’re taking the SAT test you’ll find
out that reading has helped your metacognitive learning and thinking skills!
Reply from Jane ParkerJuly 17, 2022 5:02pm: Metacognitive learning? What’s that?
Reply from ad.pamela July 17, 2022 5:02pm: It means you are aware of the thought process
you’re having and understanding them. If you’re interested, you can take a look at this article.
The article gives the conversation of a study that conducts student’s ability in metacognitive
accuracy in reading and writing tasks, and also give the patterns between them.

georgiee July 17, 2022 6:51pm: I think reading would definitely help writing! I also read an article
recently called “Reading and Writing Relations and Their Development”. It is about two scholars
conducted different models trying to explore the development of reading and writing, as well as
the stages of the characteristics. One of the arguments that stands out to me is that reading
and writing are interactive and has a very dynamic relation. There is common knowledge that
arise from reading and writing, the word recognition and spelling. And the more proficient you
are as a reader, the more prominent those knowledge would be. I’ll also put the link of the
article here!
Reply from Jane Parker July 17, 2022 7:45pm: Thank you! I took a look at it, and I think the
models and approaches talked about in this article is quite different than the one
recommended by @ad.pamela right?
Reply from georgiee July 17, 2022 7:59pm: Yes, they are a little bit different. I noticed in the
other article that it was talking about how metacognitive ability helps reading and writing skills.
However, in this article, the authors indicated that their approaches didn’t consider any
metacognitive relations. I think it would be interesting to read two studies that using different
approaches.

Monday, July 25, 2022 8:49pm

Jane Parker

I had my SAT today. It was an exhausting day. 😰

The reading was hard but at least I feel like it was too hard like how I felt before. And about the
writing, I do feel like my vocabulary and sentence structures slightly changed. Because the
sentences in the readings I did were grammatically correct, so reading them also helps my
grammar in writing too! I’m kinda looking forward to know my score.
Tuesday, August 2, 2022 9:29am

Jane Parker

It’s been a week and my results came out! On a scale of 8, I got 6 for writing, which is not bad.
And the one I took in two months ago it was 4 out of 8 haha. So I guess this is attributed to
reading these days. I think it really helps! I should keep the habit of reading. It would help my
other school assignments too. But anyways, I’m very happy about the results! 😃

Comments:
georgiee August 2, 2022 9:49am: Wow! Congrats!👏🏼

vvincent.c August 2, 2022 10:04am: I’m so glad to hear that!

ad.pamela August 2, 2022 10:21am: Congratulations!🎉

m_kalper August 2, 2022 10:40am: That’s great! Happy to hear about your improvement.

Jane Parker August 2, 2022 11:12am: Thank you everyone!

Friday, August 5, 2022 10:37pm

Jane Parker

Today is the last day of the 30-day reading challenge. I’m so glad that I finished it and I really
appreciate my persistence of being able to keep reading everyday! My conclusion is that
reading does help improve my skills in different aspects, like thinking, and especially in writing.
I’m also more aware of my thinking process as I’m reading something, and I tend to look at
questions beyond the superficial level. I think everyone should try read more if they can cuz it is
fun and we really can learn a lot from it! I think teachers should look at this connection when
trying to target either reading or writing skills because it seems they have a bidirectional
relationship. Before we know how to talk, we must listen, and in the same way, before we
write, we must read.

Comments:
georgiee August 5, 2022 11:41pm: I’m so glad you improved! I’m gonna start to read more too.
Because clearly there’s a correlation between reading and writing skills.

m_kalper August 6, 2022 8:53am: I recommend everyone should start reading more books! Jane is a
good example of showing there is a strong correlation between reading and writing skills.
Recently I also have been reading articles related to whether reading improves writing. And by
looking at Jane’s improvement, it confirms one of the conclusions from the articles about
fluency in reading and writing skills are correlated and has a strong relationship of improving
each other. As the scholar Rob Schoonen indicates in the article, the fluency in writing skill will
reduce the burden of writer’s working memory and thus create a more effective writing
process. Having the metacognitive skill also contribute to the knowledge of both reading and
writing skills, thus enhance the proficiency and correlation between them.
Works Cited

Fitzgerald, Jill, and Timothy Shanahan. “Reading and Writing Relations and Their
Development.” Educational Psychologist, 2000, https://web-s-ebscohost-
com.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:9443/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=8927d885-8a90-
4bfd-809c-64e03292ecdf%40redis.

Mas’ud, Ibnu. “The Influence of Reading Intensity toward Writing Skills.” Register Journal,
2016, https://journalregister.iainsalatiga.ac.id/index.php/register/article/view/430/341.

Schoonen, R. “Are Reading and Writing Building on the Same Skills? The Relationship Between
Reading and Writing in L1 and EFL.” Reading & Writing, vol. 32, no. 3, 2019, pp. 511–35,
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-018-9874-1.

Soto, Christian, et al. “Metacognitive Monitoring Skills of Reading Comprehension and Writing
between Proficient and Poor Readers.” Springer Link, 31 Aug. 2022, https://link-springer-
com.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:9443/article/10.1007/s11409-022-09317-8.

Yıldırım, Ozen, et al. “Testing the Bidirectional Relationship Between Reading and Writing
Skills.” International Journal of Progressive Education, vol. 16, no. 3, 2020, pp. 253–69,
https://doi.org/10.29329/ijpe.2020.248.19.