The Role of Executive Functions in Reading and Writing

Executive functions are the mental processes that students and adults use to manage tasks and achieve goals. These include goal setting, organization, cognitive flexibility, working memory, self-monitoring, attention, and inhibition. Executive functions play an important role in supporting proficient reading and writing across all grades. By grade 5, however, students’ success in reading and writing becomes increasing dependent on their ability to apply these executive function processes (Meltzer, 2010; Cartwright, 2015).

Each executive function is described below along with examples of how it impacts reading and writing.

Goal Setting

What is it?

• Setting a goal or purpose for a task
• Determining which tasks are necessary to achieve a goal and identifying which are most critical to success
• Formulating an organized, strategic, and efficient approach
• Planning the sequence in which tasks should be completed

Impact on Reading:

• Identifying whether the reading purpose requires surface-level comprehension (e.g., for enjoyment) or deeper comprehension (e.g., for assessment)
• Establishing goals for before, during, and after reading
• Keeping the reading purpose and goals in mind while reading
• Choosing actions in an appropriate order to meet reading goals, such as:
• Deciding how much time to spend on each section of text
• Selecting comprehension strategies (e.g., highlighting, note-taking, summarizing)

Impact on Writing:

• Identifying the writing topic and gathering relevant ideas and information
• Determining how the task, audience, and purpose will influence the writing

Organizing

What is it?

• The ability to impose order on information and materials
• Creating systems to manage information or tasks
• Recognizing and using patterns or systems effectively
• Organization is foundational; without it, goal setting, planning, and other executive functions are more difficult to manage

Impact on Reading:

• Recognizing text organization and structure (narrative, informational, argumentative)
• Identifying patterns of organization (e.g., sequence, compare/contrast, cause/effect) and the transitions that signal them
• Building a schema to connect related topics and ideas
• Organizing information extracted from text

Impact on Writing:

• Using graphic organizers to plan written work
• Adhering to a writing plan
• Applying knowledge of text structures (e.g., introductions, body paragraphs, conclusions) and text features (e.g., headings, table of contents)
• Keeping track of notes and source citations

Cognitive Flexibility

What is it?

• The ability to consider multiple pieces of information or tasks simultaneously and shift focus when needed, when engaging in a task
• Requires attentional control to shift focus from one aspect of a task to another

Impact on Reading:

• Switching between decoding words and understanding their meaning
• Shifting focus from a character’s perspective to the author’s purpose
• Alternating between attention to text features and comprehension of the main text

Impact on Writing:

• Managing multiple ideas at once
• Shifting among sentence structure, paragraph development, spelling, and handwriting or keyboarding
• Exploring multiple ways to express ideas
• Focusing on multiple areas when revising and editing – spelling, grammar & punctuation, organization of ideas, and content

Working Memory

What is it?

• The ability to hold and manipulate information in the mind while performing a task, and storing information while processing it.

Impact on Reading:

• Remembering word meanings
• Storing information across sentences and paragraphs
• Retaining and comparing text segments to locate information
• Holding details in mind to build a coherent understanding of the text while continuing to add new details

Impact on Writing:

• Managing multiple pieces of information and processes during all stages of writing (thinking, planning, drafting, revising)

Self Monitoring

What is it?

• The ability to reflect on one’s own thoughts, behaviors, and strategies to assess their effectiveness
• A key aspect of metacognition—thinking about one’s thinking
• Involves editing and correcting one’s own work and behavior

Impact on Reading:

• Monitoring comprehension while reading
• Recognizing when understanding breaks down and applying “fix-it” strategies

Impact on Writing:

• Following all stages of the writing process
• Being aware of when and how to apply writing strategies
• Staying focused while revising and editing
• Using self-talk to remain on task and persevere through challenges

Attention and Inhibition

What is it?

• The ability to resist distractions and stay focused on a task
• Involves inhibiting habitual responses and ignoring irrelevant, distracting information
• Also referred to as impulse control

Impact on Reading and Writing:

• Sustaining focus during reading and writing tasks despite environmental distractions
• Avoiding unrelated thoughts and focusing on relevant text or ideas
• Ignoring irrelevant meanings or associations that could interfere with comprehension or writing

Instructional Interventions for Executive Functions

Reading comprehension is often affected by executive function deficits. Instruction should aim to strengthen the cognitive skills and strategies students need to regulate their thinking while reading. Effective supports include explicit instruction in comprehension strategies (Katzir et al., 2018; Meltzer, 2018; Cartwright, 2015). Review the suggestions below for supporting reading.

• Metacognitive Awareness: Help students understand how they think and learn. Support self-awareness of learning profiles, strengths, and areas for growth. Increased metacognition improves motivation and strategy use.
• Reading Goals: Provide clear purposes and goals for reading tasks.
• Organizing Strategies: Teach strategies for organizing ideas, including the use of templates, thinking maps, and graphic organizers.
• Connecting to Prior Knowledge: Help students activate background knowledge before reading. Use graphic organizers to visually present key topics and concepts.
• Predicting: Pose questions before and during reading to help students make predictions about a text’s content based on clues from the text.
• Text Structure: Teach students to identify and use text structures in both narrative and informational texts. Preview structure before reading.
• Self-Questioning: Teach students how to generate questions before, during, and after reading to stay focused and engaged as they seek answers to the questions.
• Visualizing: Encourage students to create mental images to support memory and understanding.
• Summarizing: Teach students to retell and summarize key ideas to identify essential information.

Writing is also impacted by executive function deficits, which can interfere with every stage of the writing process. Instructional interventions should focus on helping students develop strategies to plan text structure, integrate multiple skills while writing a draft, revise for both content and conventions, and self-regulate throughout writing. Review the suggestions below for supporting writing.

• Writing Process: Teach students to follow all stages: think, plan, write, revise.
• Writing Strategies: Explicitly teach strategies for each stage, such as annotation, note-taking, summarizing, and revising.
• Graphic Organizers. Provide graphic organizers and writing templates as scaffolds to support the planning and writing stages.
• Set Clear Product Goals. Be specific about writing expectations, including task, audience, purpose, length, content requirements, and grading criteria.
• Use Models. Provide mentor models of text for students to emulate.
• Lists. Offer lists of precise and engaging words, transition words and phrases, and question terms.
• Feedback. Use checklists and rubrics for both teacher and peer feedback, as well as for student self-assessment.

Additional Resources:

• Article: 5 Ways Executive Functioning Issues Can Impact Reading (Understood)
• Recorded Webinar: The Role of Executive Functions in Reading and Writing (Joan Sedita, Keys to Literacy)

References:

• Cartwright, K. B. (2015). Executive skills and reading comprehension. The Guilford Press.
• Katzir, T., Markovich, V., Tesler, E., & Shany, M. (2018). Self-regulation and reading comprehension: Self-perceptions, self-evaluations, and effective strategies for intervention. In L. Meltzer (Ed.), Executive function in education: From theory to practice (pp. 125–140). The Guilford Press.
• Meltzer, L. (2010). Executive function in the classroom. The Guilford Press.
• Meltzer, L. (2018). Creating strategic classrooms and schools: Embedding executive function strategies in the curriculum. In L. Meltzer (Ed.), Executive function in education: From theory to practice (pp. 193–206). The Guilford Press.