Written Communication Apr 1986

Reading, Writing, and Understanding: An Analysis of the Construction of Meaning

JUDITH A. LANGER

Abstract

This article focuses on ways in which school-age children “make meaning” when they are involved in reading and writing activities. An Analysis of Meaning Construction procedure was developed to describe the knowledge sources, specific strategies, and monitoring behaviors of 67 third-, sixth-, and ninth-grade children when they read and wrote stories and reports. Each student participated in either a think-aloud or retrospective self-report activity during (or after) reading and writing four story and report passages. The resulting transcripts were segmented into communication units and analyzed using the meaning analysis system. Comparisons were made between genres (story and report), domains (reading and writing), and ages (grades 3, 6, and 9). Findings indicate that meaning-making behaviors (1) are complex and varied, (2) change with age and difficulty, and (3) vary consistently between reading and writing. Although reading and writing are related language activities in that they tap similar underlying processes, it is inaccurate to conceptualize them as predominantly similar; reading and writing are also quite different in that the processes they invoke follow markedly different patterns.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
1986-04-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088386003002005
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Open Access
Closed
Topics
genre theory literacy studies
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (2)

  1. McGINLEY et al. (1989)
    Traversing the Topical Landscape: Reading and Writing as Ways of Knowing
    Written Communication
  2. McCUTCHEN (1988)
    “Functional Automaticity” in Children's Writing: A Problem of Metacognitive Control
    Written Communication

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    Levels of processing in human memory
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CrossRef global citation count: 21 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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