Kim and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis to explore the relationship between reading and writing skills, particularly focus on how this relation varies by linguistic grain size, measurement of reading comprehension and written composition, and grade levels. Using robust variance estimation to address the nested structure of effect sizes, the analysis included 395 studies with 646 unique samples, totalling 2,265 effect sizes, and found a strong average correlation of 0.72 between reading and writing.
Across various linguistic grain sizes (units or chunks of language), the results showed that word reading and spelling had the strongest relation (r = 0.82), while reading comprehension and written composition had a moderate relation (r = 0.44). Other moderate correlations included spelling and text reading fluency (r = 0.59), word reading and written composition (r = 0.42), and text reading fluency and written composition (r = 0.33).
Further investigation highlighted relations between different of reading comprehension tasks and various composition dimensions. Among various measures of reading comprehension, writing quality had stronger correlations with oral-retell (r = 0.55), open-ended questions (0.49), and multiple choice (r=0.48) than the cloze task (0.37). Regarding dimensions of written composition, reading comprehension correlated more strongly with writing conventions (0.55), writing quality (0.46), and writing syntax (0.41) than with writing productivity (r0.23).
Developmentally, the word reading and spelling relation was significantly stronger for primary grade students (r = 0.82) than for university students and adults (0.69). However, the relation between reading comprehension and various dimensions of written composition did not differ by grade levels.
The findings suggest that reading-writing relations are not uniform and vary across different linguistic components and developmental stages. This meta-analysis provides a detailed and nuanced picture of these relationships.
Source: Kim, Y.-S. G., Wolters, A., & Lee, J. won. (2024). Reading and writing relations are not uniform: They differ by the linguistic grain size, developmental phase, and measurement. Review of Educational Research, 94(3), 311–342. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543231178830