Reading Strategies.

The Reading-Writing Connection

Reading and writing are intimately connected; they are two points on what is known as the rhetorical triangle, an ancient model that describes the act of communication created when writer (or speaker) communicates with reader (or listener). The third point on the triangle is the text (or message) itself. Meaning is communicated not just through the text, but in an interaction where both reader and writer have important roles to play. The reader, who comes to the text with her own prior knowledge, beliefs, and understandings, negotiates with the text (and through the text, the writer) to create new knowledge, belief, and understandings.

Reading and writing are intimately connected; they are two points on what is known as the rhetorical triangle,an ancient model that describes the act of communication created when writer (or speaker) communicates with reader (or listener). The third point on the triangle is the text (or message) itself. Meaning is communicated not just through the text, but in an interaction where both reader and writer have important roles to play. The reader, who comes to the text with her own prior knowledge, beliefs, and understandings, negotiates with the text (and through the text, the writer) to create new knowledge, belief, and understandings.

Readers have to act. They don't just passively receive the meaning in a text; instead they interact with a text until meaning is created in their minds. Researchers agree that reading is not a receptive act, where you can just decode the words and then receive, or "get," the meaning, but an act of construction or creation (Haas & Flower, 1988). Active reading is best way to become a better reader.

Active reading is useful in all kinds of reading situations, but in academic reading, where the reader must also be a critical thinker, it is key.

One of the first steps in active reading is to determine what your purposes for reading this text are; in the reading-writing triangle, your purposes are just as important as the writer's intent and the text. After you have considered your purpose, you will be better able to use some of the strategies good readers use.