Abstract
This study questions the influence of students' reading on their writing development. The study ‘s purpose was to explore the possible effects of students' reading on writing. The study hypothesized that reading and analyzing linguistic structure, format, and style of a professional book review would have an impact on students' writing book reviews. Three students in a special education Reading class wrote book reviews in response to reading children's literature books. In the Baseline condition, the students read children's literature books without discussion and wrote book reviews. During Intervention 1 condition, the students read children's literature books while the teacher was using a Guided Reading approach and wrote book reviews. During the Intervention 2 condition, the students read and examined a variety of professional book reviews, generated a checklist of the components of a book review, read children's literature books, and wrote book reviews. Results indicated that the Intervention 1 condition did not reflect a change in the students' written book reviews compared to the Baseline condition. The analysis of the Intervention 2 condition students' book reviews revealed that reading of professional book reviews had a positive effect on the percentage of reading-writing connections found in the students' written book reviews. The study's results revealed important implications for the teaching of reading and writing together.