The reading-writing connection: an investigation of the relationship between reading ability and writing quality across multiple grades and three writing discourse modes

This study examines the relationship between grade-level reading comprehension and writing quality at grades 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12. Data were collected from a total 521 students in one school district in Mississippi. Two essay scores each in narrative, informative, and persuasive writing were obtained for each student, which enabled a close examination of the relationship between overall writing quality and discourse mode. A many-faceted Rasch model was used to adjust for rater severity in the scoring of student essays and place essay scores on an equal-interval scale. Results of correlational and structural equation modeling analyses indicate a developmental trend in the relationship between reading comprehension and writing quality with the largest correlations at grades 8, 10, and 12. The relationship between reading comprehension and writing quality was not affected in a systematic way by the discourse mode of the writing prompt. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to model the relationship between reading comprehension and writing quality and evaluate the factor loadings between writing quality and the discourse mode indicator variables. The model in which the factor loadings for adjacent grades were held constant was found to fit for all adjacent-grade comparisons except between grade 4 and grade 6, suggesting an invariant factor structure for grades 6, 8, 10, and 12. Comparisons between male/female groups and Black/White groups produced similar results. Implications of these findings for future research, measurement practice, and classroom instruction and assessment are provided