Most visibly, able readers use writing to help them process what they read. Mature readers consuming difficult text might reach for a pencil to make marginal annotations before they even noticed what they're doing. And upon reflection, most of us can recall many experiences where having to write drawing from or reacting to something we've read has deepened our understanding of the reading. And as writers, we are always reading. These visible ways that reading and writing complement each other are deepened by research that suggests that they are also complementary processes of meaning-making.
Readers are less passive consumers than active composers of meaning as they read.
And writers must draw on their knowledge of how different genres are constructed, how different audiences might approach a passage, and how written language holds together in order to write. All this suggests that reading and writing, complementary cognitive processes, should be integrated in the classroom. However, research suggests that reading and writing are often segregated. In the elementary classroom, reading occupies a block in the morning and writing occurs, catch as catch-can, in the afternoon. Middle schoolers might have a reading teacher and a reading class separate from language arts.