Neuroscience of Reading

With most traditional education focused on reading, it's no surprise that there has been a lot of research in this area. First we must realize our brain was not designed to read. When we learn to read, our brain uses parts that would otherwise be used for other skills. In non-readers, the part of the brain that we would expect to use when reading is used for processing faces.

fMRI shows that different languages use different parts of the brain. Symbolic languages use a different part than phonetic languages for example. Even more interesting, dyslexics use a different part of their brain to read phonetic languages than typical readers.

Some people believed that visual motion problems were the cause for dyslexia. It has now been proven that it is a result of dyslexia, not the cause. In fact in a study treating dyslexia in adults (the Lindamood-Bell program), as the reading level improved so did the visual motion ability. This is important to note because these two skills are in unrelated parts of the brain.

So, if you want your child to have an easier time reading, where should you start? First by playing with spoken language. When kids practice rhyming it uses the same part of the brain that will later be used for reading. That's why so many kids books are written in rhyme. Once your child can identify (does cat rhyme with bat), produce (what rhymes with cat), and produce (tell me two words that rhyme) rhymes, you can move onto other skills.

From there I usually introduce two different skills. One is clapping syllables. This is fairly simple, but will take most kids awhile before they are accurate. The other skills is isolating the initial sound (cat, cow, kangaroo, cup, kickoff). Notice we are just using what it sounds like. It doesn't matter what letters it starts with. It's usually around this time most kids notice that when you read there are words on the page. Simply pointing to the words as you are reading helps them understand that words and letters have meaning. This seems like an overly simple concept, but without it you really can't read anything.

Once all of these are mastered you can start isolating other parts of words. Typical examples would be end sounds (cat, pit, blanket, put) or vowel sounds (cat, ham, pass, tad). From this point, learning which letters make which sounds is fairly simple. You are just adding symbolic recognition to the mix. I don't even bother teaching letter names at this point. When they see t they say "t", not "tee" or "tuh." Once they know all of the sounds (42 total), then putting them together just seems to click.

I am dyslexic so this didn't work for me at all. I couldn't rhyme. I couldn't clap syllables. I couldn't isolate sounds. I also couldn't read for a long time. It has now been proven with intervention (intensive learning to rhyme, isolate sound, etc) reading can be easier. When I was a kid I just thought I was stupid. When I finally learned to read it was through word recognition rather than sounding out words. Basically I read English the way most people read a symbolic language. This also explains why my spelling is so horrible. I don't see words as chunks of sounds, I seem them as complete words.

I suspect one of my children is also dyslexic. However knowing all of this, I was able to offer the intensive verbal work to help. Now I have one child who is advanced with reading and one child who is right on track. It is important to note that the child who is now right on track has worked much harder to get there. I'm willing to bet that by Kindergarten neither child will qualify as dyslexic. I'm not saying this would work with every child. Just as there is no one solution for anything else when it comes to kids. Every kid is different. This blog is just where I post what I have done and why.