Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2025 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What needs to happen next—at the state, district, and school levels—for the science of reading revolution to fulfill its promise and ensure that far more children learn to read well?” Learn more.
As states, districts, and schools work to ensure that the science of reading revolution fulfills its promise, they should not overlook one of the most profound tools for improving student literacy and learning: writing.
I have been following discussions over the science of reading since my old friend and colleague, Sol Stern—who sadly passed away this year, may his memory be a blessing—first introduced me to the work of E.D. Hirsch and the idea that improving students’ background knowledge also enhances their reading ability. Sol began writing about E.D. Hirsch and the failure of “balanced literacy” back in the late 1990s.
Later, I had the good fortune to work at The Writing Revolution (TWR), a nonprofit that helps teachers deliver more effective writing instruction, where I learned how writing fits into the literacy equation from the staff, the organization’s leaders, Drs. Toni-Ann Vroom and Dina Zoleo, the organization’s founder, Dr. Judith C. Hochman, and founding board member Natalie Wexler. (I have been lucky to work with many exceptional individuals in my career.)
My colleagues at TWR educated me on how reading, writing, and learning are inexorably linked—and how writing is the key to improving the other two. If you want to help students learn how to read, convert information into long-lasting knowledge, and think critically, teaching them to write well is key.
Teaching students how to construct complex sentences helps them to understand such sentences when they encounter them in their reading. Teaching students to plan and revise their writing helps them to think logically and develop critical thinking skills. Asking students to write about what they’ve been taught leads to deeper, longer-lasting learning.
Young people don’t just “pick up” writing. They need to be explicitly taught how to write. This doesn’t mean teaching grammar in isolation via old-fashioned sentence diagrams. Instead, over the years, TWR has developed a series of strategies—known as The Hochman Method—that offer teachers a way to embed writing instruction into the content that they are teaching, in any subject at any grade level.
Teachers often note that they have never been taught how to teach writing, but merely to assign it. According to one survey, 71 percent of high school teachers reported receiving minimal to no preparation to teach writing. The Hochman Method offers teachers a road map: a clear, coherent, evidence-based method to improve student writing.
The Hochman Method differs from other writing programs in that it begins at the sentence level. Writing places a tremendous cognitive load on students’ brains. Mastering sentence structure reduces the cognitive load and allows students to focus on the points they are trying to make. In The Hochman Method, once students have acquired strong sentence-level skills, structured support is provided for more extensive writing, ultimately enabling students to write complete compositions with linguistic complexity and clarity.
Another unique feature of The Hochman Method is that student writing activities are embedded throughout all curricular content. Whether learning about the Civil War, dividing fractions, or the periodic table, students are asked to write about what they’ve learned. TWR has just launched the most useful AI educational tool that I’ve seen. Named “Judy” after the organization’s founder, it generates activities and worksheets embedded with TWR strategies for any subject and grade level.
Research suggests that enhancing students’ writing skills is crucial to improving their reading abilities. And it should be noted that TWR has been working intensively in Louisiana for the past several years, one of the states that has seen the greatest improvement in student literacy. TWR has trained thousands of teachers in Louisiana and worked with the Department of Education to embed TWR’s strategies in the state’s ELA Guidebooks curriculum.
It has been heartening to watch the science of reading gain traction over the past decade. In these deeply depressing and cynical times, it should give us wonks hope that sometimes good ideas can triumph and have a real impact. Going forward, schools, districts, and states should ensure that they include explicit writing instruction in the science of reading revolution. Reading and writing are the two sides of the same literacy coin—and both deserve attention. Viva la revolution!
