Abstract:

The development of literacy involves the development of writing and reading as conjoined activities with shared cognitive processes that shape each other, and are affected by the context in which they occur. The role of summary writing, specially structured summary writing in assessing reading comprehension and its effect on the skill mentioned above, as a facilitator of learning is somehow rarely explored in Iranian universities. The reason for this may have been the poor performance of pre-intermediate students in their writing as a foreign language (EFL). This study investigated the effect of two methods of summary writing (structured and unstructured) on EFL learners' reading comprehension in their summative tests. After random selection of two groups of pre-intermediate students, they were provided with treatment in structured and unstructured summary writing. At the end of the treatment period, a parallel post-test was administered to both groups. The analysis of the data determined the effect of the two variables on developing reading comprehension among pre-intermediate EFL learners. The results revealed that structured summary writing led to learners' better performance in their reading comprehension tests (p<.01).

Keywords:

Writing, reading, conjoined activities, shared cognitive processes.