The TRIP reading and writing integration approach


"Knowledge of text structure appears positively correlated with reading comprehension and writing ability. Learning and understanding the elements of a story framework resulted in increased composition and comprehension abilities among students with and without disabilities."31

The TRIP model was developed based on a predominant theme found among a number of research studies, "that integrating reading and writing appears to engage learners in a greater variety of reasoning operations than when writing or reading is taught separately or when students perform a variety of other tasks in conjunction with their reading."32

The TRIP model has 4 phases and has incorporated effective instructional strategies such as providing scaffolds, integrating feedback and review, presenting information in sequence and providing the big picture. Movement from one phase to the next occurs only when mastery of the skills taught in the preceding phase is evident in a number of contexts.

Phase 1
  • Teach students narrative text structure and the importance of summarizing while reading short stories.
  • Focus on the big idea.
Phase 2
  • Instruct students on how to integrate the text structure comprehension and composition strategy with a process to plan, organize, write, edit, and revise story summaries.
  • Teach the POWER strategy and apply in story summaries (mnemonic: plan, organize, write, edit, and revise).
  • Provide note sheets to learners (material scaffold).
  • Model the process, use peer review, and then encourage learners to practice the new knowledge and skills on their own (teacher scaffold).