Seven Ways Reading Affects Writing

1. Readers understand wordsWriting. When you read, you follow the author's
Readers understand words because they havetrain of thought. It is so natural.
read how sentences and words fit together, the5. Readers have a great vocabulary
order of a sentence and the placement of words.Because of their tremendous reading, readers
They understand the sentences because theyhave a great vocabulary. This will certainly help in
have seen these words and similar sentencesWriting. They will use a variety of words, not the
before. They can then use them in writing orsame old thing. I have a cousin who was such a
compose similar ones.wonderful reader. When he wrote his thesis for
2. Readers understand the structure of thehis doctorate, the words he used were so large
Languageand long, one needed a dictionary to look them
Readers have seen the structure so many timesup. He always beat everyone in Scrabble when he
that they can readily understand how towas little, even the adults. No one could outdo him.
construct great sentences. They can see thatHis vocabulary was extensive.
writers use different kinds of sentences to make6. Readers know how to make their writing
Writing more interesting like starting out with ainteresting and exciting
question. Then the author proceeds to answer it.Readers read. They know they don't like to read
A variety of sentences like Declarative,"boring" books or articles. They can see how
Interrogative, Imperative and Exclamatory makeauthors use words to paint pictures and make it
Writing much more delightful to read. Readers alsomore interesting and exciting. Redundancy is poor
see that some sentences are long and some areWriting and writers need to stay away from it.
shorter. By varying sentence length, it keeps theUsually good readers are good writers. They go
Writing more lively.hand in hand. One complements the other.
3. Readers understand grammar7. Readers can use creative ways to make
Good grammar only makes sense to readers.people want to read what they wrote
They know how different parts of speech shouldFinally, I would say that good readers can make
fit together. For example: they know in thetheir Writing creative. People want to read it. It
sentence "The boy rides his bike," that rides goeswould be a book you can't put down. You just
with a single subject noun. Thus, they understandwant to keep reading it until the end. It is like a
subject-verb agreement. Understanding goodbait to a fish. I thought The Shack was like that.
grammar really can assist the reader in Writing.It had a great story line, the kind that would
They are much more able to write complex andinterest many people. A good reader can do that.
simple sentences.I loved it when my students were creative in
4. Readers understand thoughts of the writerWriting. Sometimes I would put a sentence or
Good readers understand the thoughts of thepart of a sentence on the board. It was great to
writer because they have read and thought alongsee their creativity using that sentence and
with the authors. This helps them in Writing theirmaking an adventurous story from it.
own compositions. This is a tremendous asset in