Reading is NOT Natural
A few years ago, I made the mistake of requesting information from a company that "guaranteed improved reading scores within a few weeks". Ever since then, despite repeated attempts to block them, the company frequently emails me special offers and webinar/seminar opportunities.
Then I get kind of angry because I think of all the kids and adults who think they’re stupid because they can’t translate these symbols (visually) into meaningful ideas. Then I think of countless educators who give lip service to the idea that "every teacher is a reading teacher". Then I get even more upset when I hear the world-at-large label weak or inexperienced visual readers as deficient students/people.
Then I calm down because reading is NOT a natural process. After repeating this mantra seven times, I can remind myself and others that neuroscience has probably given the best insights into the reading brain, and this science will eventually reach a classroom or professional development series. That's where I can help.
So why do so many kids struggle with reading? (For purpose of today's writing, "reading" will be defined as "making meaning of text via visual processing" rather than my regular definition of "making meaning through comprehension of text".
The brain's ability to develop spoken language, which is a natural process, seems to greatly impact the brain’s ability to read. As humans begin to associate meanings to arbitrary sounds in approximately 6500 languages worldwide, it is difficult to not be awestruck by the brain's ability to process these complex patterns. Without going into too much detail, the brain's neural components allow humans to go from a simple spoken word, and through a series of steps, arrive at concept formation (Gazzaniga, 2002).
Reading ability has very little to do with intelligence, and vice versa. You can have a genius IQ and still not be able to read. In fact, most kids who struggle with reading have above-average IQs (Shaywitz, 2003). And unlike spoken language, which has specialized areas of the brain (Broca's Area and Wernicke's Area), there is NO specialized area of the brain for reading. This is where teaching can help to link e sounds of a language to the letters in an alphabet can help. But simply learning sound-letter relationships does not necessarily improve phonemic awareness (the ability to break down verbal language into smaller pieces).
Consider this piece of writing taken from a physics book:
"...sound waves are propagated through air and other gases as a series of compressions and rarefactions that take place so rapidly that there is no time for heat to flow from one part of the medium to another. Volume changes for which Q = 0 are called adiabatic processes. We can ensure that Q = 0 either by carrying out the volume change very quickly (as in sound waves) or by doing it slowing in a heavily insulated environment. Let us see what kinetic theory has to say about adiabatic processes." (Fundamentals of Physics, Halliday and Resnick, 3rd edition)
Okay, now please take out a sheet of loose-leaf paper and summarize what you just read without looking back at the text. Plagiarism will result in a "zero" and an academic referral to the principal or school head.
I bet that most of you could decode (pronounce the word and probably define many of the individual words), yet could you summarize it in your own words? If you said yes, then you comprehended the text. If you said no, then you didn't understand the point. You fail the test because you're dumb, no recess for you. See my point?
I could spends months on this topic, and since there's so much data and research on the topic, I will have to "chunk it" to keep it manageable. There are so many others factors to consider, including working memory, syntax, morphology, eye movement, etc.
So the next time you encounter someone who struggles to read, remember that reading
Reading is NOT Natural
A few years ago, I made the mistake of requesting information from a company that "guaranteed improved reading scores within a few weeks". Ever since then, despite repeated attempts to block them, the company frequently emails me special offers and webinar/seminar opportunities.
Then I get kind of angry because I think of all the kids and adults who think they’re stupid because they can't translate these symbols (visually) into meaningful ideas. Then I think of countless educators who give lip service to the idea that "every teacher is a reading teacher". Then I get even more upset when I hear the world-at-large label weak or inexperienced visual readers as deficient students/people.
Then I calm down because reading is NOT a natural process. After repeating this mantra seven times, I can remind myself and others that neuroscience has probably given the best insights into the reading brain, and this science will eventually reach a classroom or professional development series. That's where I can help.
So why do so many kids struggle with reading? (For purpose of today's writing, "reading" will be defined as “making meaning of text via visual processing” rather than my regular definition of "making meaning through comprehension of text".
The brain's ability to develop spoken language, which is a natural process, seems to greatly impact the brain’s ability to read. As humans begin to associate meanings to arbitrary sounds in approximately 6500 languages worldwide, it is difficult to not be awestruck by the brain's ability to process these complex patterns. Without going into too much detail, the brain's neural components allow humans to go from a simple spoken word, and through a series of steps, arrive at concept formation (Gazzaniga, 2002).
Reading ability has very little to do with intelligence, and vice versa. You can have a genius IQ and still not be able to read. In fact, most kids who struggle with reading have above-average IQs (Shaywitz, 2003). And unlike spoken language, which has specialized areas of the brain (Broca's Area and Wernicke's Area), there is NO specialized area of the brain for reading. This is where teaching can help to link e sounds of a language to the letters in an alphabet can help. But simply learning sound-letter relationships does not necessarily improve phonemic awareness (the ability to break down verbal language into smaller pieces).
Consider this piece of writing taken from a physics book:
"...sound waves are propagated through air and other gases as a series of compressions and rarefactions that take place so rapidly that there is no time for heat to flow from one part of the medium to another. Volume changes for which Q = 0 are called adiabatic processes. We can ensure that Q = 0 either by carrying out the volume change very quickly (as in sound waves) or by doing it slowing in a heavily insulated environment. Let us see what kinetic theory has to say about adiabatic processes." (Fundamentals of Physics, Halliday and Resnick, 3rd edition)
Okay, now please take out a sheet of loose-leaf paper and summarize what you just read without looking back at the text. Plagiarism will result in a "zero" and an academic referral to the principal or school head.
I bet that most of you could decode (pronounce the word and probably define many of the individual words), yet could you summarize it in your own words? If you said yes, then you comprehended the text. If you said no, then you didn't understand the point. You fail the test because you're dumb, no recess for you. See my point?
I could spends months on this topic, and since there's so much data and research on the topic, I will have to "chunk it" to keep it manageable. There are so many others factors to consider, including working memory, syntax, morphology, eye movement, etc.
So the next time you encounter someone who struggles to read, remember that reading is NOT natural process!