Coming from EFL background, I found some assumptions about teaching reading and writing in English mentioned in the chapter not relevant. The author emphasizes the initial separation and disparity between how reading and writing were perceived and taught. Since I never had a writing course in school, I cannot really say that reading and writing were completely separate. They were two skills that were taught at the same time, within the same class sometimes.
However, while reading the chapter I realized that even though the two skills were never taught as separate courses, they were still treated as two separate skills. This becomes especially clear after analyzing Tiernye's tables on pp. 29-30. Even though writing and reading occurred in the same class (with writing usually being a home assignment or an in-class test), reading was indeed the way of receiving the information, while writing was (re)producing it. Reading was seen as a necessary skill preceding writing. Often the same text was used for reading (=getting the information and understanding it) and writing (=summarizing the understood information, sometimes adding something new to it). Reading was never seen as an "act of composing"; in fact, writing was not always composing either. Following the conventions of spelling and sentence structure was more important than the meaning.
So, there are a lot more connections between reading and writing than I thought would be relevant and applicable. I also believe that in EFL contexts, even more connections can be made, due to the differences in viewpoints about teaching English in different countries. This could lead to elaborating Reading-Writing Connections Models for every country or for every context. In this way, the absence of a single (=universal) model can be seen as an advantage.
I think people are vaguely aware that somehow reading would be helpful to writing and good writers are usually good readers. Strangely enough, this vague assumption does not enter into English classrooms in my country. It's assumed that encouraging students to read more and helping them engaged in literacy activities should take place outside the classroom by enthusiastic parents. I realize from the chapters actual connections between reading and writing exist and those are worth reseraching. Above all, this issue should be addressed in classroom at school as well.
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