Reading and writing: a joint process based on an unavoidable complicity

Abstract

This paper aims to show the opportunity and relevance of the topic proposed (“Research and teaching of reading and writing: psycholinguistic studies”) in early and more advanced moments of the use of reading and writing. It further intends to: underline the added value of a psycholinguistic approach to the abovementioned activities/skills; stress the cognitive, neurological and linguistic framework judged to be necessary to enter the world of writing; discuss the “Matthew effect” in order to counteract its more popular and perhaps “punitive” interpretation when it is taken in a more generalized manner; and, finally, to highlight the importance of revising writing mainly by means of three of the eight moments of Richard Lanham’s (2006) Paramedic Method, based on excerpts of texts written by university students. The need, at an academic level, to encourage students to feel the unavoidable complicity between reading and writing becomes reinforced with the transcription of a personal account by a Master’s student, who was able to take full advantage of the methodology followed in the course Psycholinguistics and the Teaching of Languages lectured by the author of this paper at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto.