Books for Prep | |
 - A view from a reading teacherI have taught written language skills (reading, writing and spelling) to reluctant learners (mainly individuals with dyslexia) for thirty years. This book, PROUST AND THE SQUID: THE STORY AND SCIENCE OF THE READING BRAIN, is a book that I would highly recommend to my colleagues and others interested in language and its development. The author, Maryanne Wolf, delights readers with a historical perspective of reading, confirms the reason for reading and provided thought provoking insights into the future of reading. Rating: - An excellent introduction to the cognitive neuroscience of readingIn this fascinating work, which might be viewed as an introduction to the cognitive neuroscience of reading, the author gives the reader an excellent overview of the cultural origins of writing/reading, the brain mechanisms that are responsible for the ability to read, and the factors behind the inability to read. Written for a general audience, the book does contain some information of a more technical nature for those readers who might have a general background in neuroscience or cognitive neuroscience. Those readers who need more can find much more detailed information in the references. Everything about this book is interesting, especially to those who may be described as "obsessive" readers that spend a great majority of their life reading and are interested in knowing more about the cognitive mechanisms behind the reading act. There are many interesting discussions and questions that are provoked by the reading of this book. Some of these include: - Once one has achieved what the author has called "expert" reading status, what is the effect of biological age on this status? Does biological aging affect the "rate of processing" of textual information and if so to what degree? Along these same lines, is it more difficult for an older person to learn how to read as compared to young children? - Erotic literature has the propensity for physical arousal, so does its reading evoke even more of the imaginative properties of the reading brain than does other types of literature or less? In addition, it would seem that the limbic system would play a greater role in erotic literature, since more emphasis is being placed on attention and imagination than comprehension. - The technical description that author gives of the "first 500 milliseconds" of reading is fascinating and sheds light on the degree to which the reader must be attentive to the words in the text. But in relation to the need for this attention, while reading a book everyone no doubt has experienced the process of "drifting": you are turning the pages of the book and reading the text but your mind is engaged in other thoughts far removed from the content of the book. After some time and possibly many pages later you catch yourself and then skim the pages you thought you missed. Is the information in the book still assimilated when "drifting" or is completely ignored because the reader is not exercising deliberate concentration? Or is it being partially assimilated and to what degree? And if only partially, can the "skimming" fill in the lost details? If one believes the author's technical description then when "drifting" certain areas of the `parietal lobe', those that are responsible for "disengaging" attention from whatever else we are doing, are not being activated, but the `superior colliculi' that is responsible for eye movements, and the `thalamus' that coordinates information from the brain are. - Is "speed reading" a viable or effective strategy and what exactly is behind it? Does speed reading require other neuronal mechanisms over and above what is discussed in the "first 500 milliseconds"? People who claim to be able to speed read usually also claim that they do so with complete comprehension. Is this true or are they missing some important information from the book? Unfortunately the author does not discuss speed reading in this book. - Does it become easier to assimilate knowledge the more one reads? If one accepts the author's explanations this would be the case, for she holds that less time is required for a "fluent" brain to represent and retrieve the visual, phonological, and semantic information needed for reading. But in this regard is it possible to read "too much", i.e. to read at such an intensity/frequency that a kind of "asymptotic limit" is reached for the ability to retrieve information from `associative' memory as described by the author? - Is the reading process as discussed by the author different to some degree when reading technical literature? Those who read mathematical texts can attest to the large degree of concentration needed as compared for example to reading a novel or a news story. The author asserts that the speed that we read a word is influenced greatly by the quality and quantity of the semantic or background knowledge that is activated by that word. But does this also hold for mathematical equations or other types of symbolic expressions that are essentially outside colloquial grammars? English grammar for example does not include mathematical expressions as part of its syntax or semantics so when such expressions are included in texts, as they are of course in mathematical texts written in English, the reader's "flow" must be interrupted so as to deal with these expressions. This slows down the reading rate considerably, and frequently a lot of backtracking must be done in order to fully comprehend the text. Ironically, visualization plays a strong role in the understanding of mathematical texts, but the authors of these texts frequently eschew the idea of incorporating diagrams or pictures in them. - The author devotes a considerable part of the book to the historical invention of language and reading and compares the skepticism of Socrates towards writing/reading to her own skepticism on the use of online tools for the presentation of information. As far as the explanatory power of verbal narratives are concerned, Socrates certainly had a point if one is only concerned with dialogs of a philosophical or argumentative nature, as of course Socrates was deeply embedded in. But think of how difficult it would be exchange highly sophisticated mathematical information in a verbal dialog. Such an exchange almost necessitates the use of writing, as well as its preservation. And as far as online information and the way it is presented, the jury is still out on its efficacy due to the short timeline that the Internet has been available to everyone. In this regard the author, and all of those who love to read, must be careful not to morph into technoreactionaries when dealing with the new methods of presenting information. These new methods may be even more effective, even more fun, than the activity we have all done for thousands of years, this activity which at some point in the future may be christened as "classical reading." Rating: - Confirming and Thought-ProvokingI received this book as a gift from a student I tutored in preparation for the Advanced Placement Latin exam. Almost as soon as I had started to read it, I began to cite it and recommend it to my teacher friends and to parents of young children. Maryanne Wolf is a professor of child development and cognitive neuroscience at Tufts University and is director of the Center for Reading and Language Research. She is also the mother of two children, one of whom has dyslexia, and has reflected deeply on the reading history of her own family. In this book, she accomplishes three major tasks. First, she explains in detail the development of language within the human species. From the first cave drawings to the symbolic systems of Egyptian hieroglyphics and Akkadian and Sumerian cuneiform to the origin of the powerful alphabetic system of the Greeks, she charts the course of human literacy, including the changes in brain function required for fluency. A second theme of the book discusses the advantages and disadvantages that children face in their own journey toward fluent reading. Here Wolf describes reading and oral language environments within the home; activity inside successfully reading brains and inside those that are less successful, particularly as a result of some type of dyslexia; and various pedagogic practices that address both kinds of readers. A final theme that runs throughout the book regards the future of reading, both for children with innate challenges and for all children in the digital age. With regard to her discussion of the development of language, I will certainly share parts of her work with my high school Latin students. She makes a strong case for the power of written, especially alphabetic, language as a vehicle that allows certain kinds of thought. I am particularly fascinated with her discussion of how the brain, which is not created for the specific task of reading, can nevertheless adapt and rearrange its own structures to allow for reading. On p. 217 she writes, "[T]he reordering of the brain's basic computations that occurs during the acquisition of reading becomes the neuronal basis for new thoughts. In other words, the new circuits and pathways that the brain fashions in order to read become the foundation for being able to think in different, innovative ways." This is a profound statement, elaborated on the previous pages. For example, on pp. 216-217 she writes, "Reading illuminates how the brain learns new skills and adds to its intelligence: it rearranges the circuits and connections among older structures.... The brain's design made reading possible, and reading's design changed the brain in multiple, critical, still evolving ways." I could not help thinking at this point about the notion of top-down causation within philosophy of mind in which the physical brain can give rise to a non-physical consciousness, which in turn can affect the physical world. It also made me think of The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force by Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley, which, unfortunately, sits on my shelf unread, but deals with a similar concept. Her discussions of childhood advantages and disadvantages on the road to fluency were powerful confirmations of what some of us have known all along. Admittedly, I find more application for her narrative discussions of environmental factors within the home than the more technical analysis of what takes place in a dyslexic brain. She rightly emphasizes the importance of a linguistically rich home environment that includes much oral conversation and the reading of books within the comfort of a caregiver's embrace. According to Wolf, those lacking such a nurturing start to life can enter Kindergarten as much as 32 million words behind their peers. At one point she writes, "[S]ome educators throw their hands up with regard to English orthography and want children to learn everything in context, however ineffectually. It is essential during this phase for the semi-fluent decoding readers to acquire a good repertoire of the letter-pattern and vowel-pair `sight chunks' that make up words beyond the primer level." (p. 128) "Fluent recognition is significantly propelled by both vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. For the word-poor child, reality actually worsens because of the usually undiscussed fact that precious little explicit vocabulary instruction goes on in most classrooms." (p. 129) I couldn't agree more about what is needed or about the fact that this need is not being met. Foreign language pedagogy in this country has increasingly fallen into the trap of emphasizing context and the deliberate removal of explicit vocabulary and grammatical instruction. I think that there is even a latent form of racism involved in this approach, as presumable novel and "cutting-edge" techniques are often employed in inner-city and impoverished environments to save at-risk children, many of whom are of ethnic minorities. Already hindered by linguistically poor home environments, our school systems further defeat these children by not offering the kind of instruction they truly need. Finally, Wolf's musings about the possible effects on reading by a digital, hyperlinked world, are thought provoking. In my own work I use the Internet for quick reference, but rarely ponder long about what I read. Deep, thoughtful reading, with many highlights and marginal annotations, occurs only when I read a book. I do think that the train has left the station with regard to digital texts, but Wolf gives us good reason to pause and allow our brains time to process the possible effects of not pausing and allowing our brains time to process. Rating:  - More squid than ProustThe subject is interesting, or appears to be so -- how reading is affected by and affects the brain, with the teaser that we are now entering a new post-reading age with unforeseeable consequences. Unfortunately the book is poorly written and poorly organized and has little new to say. Precisely where you expect analysis you get vagueness and unclear rhetoric. I'm not sure how useful it is to know what sections of the brain are activated when reading, or when reading with dyslexia, or reading Chinese rather than English. It is interesting if dyslexia is caused by attempting to read with the right hemisphere instead of the left, as is 'normal,' but this is not really new, either. Although the book claims to address issues concerning the brain rather than the mind, I think it really fails to make the necessary connections with its readers with this separation. Rating:  - Esoteric and Fascinating......I initially found this book at the library (my second home) and although I read much more fiction than "non" was drawn to the theme. What voracious reader does not want to understand why reading a book is a joy and a passion for some of us and a hideous chore for others? One of my new friends is severely dyslexic and when I saw that the author had a vested interest in the subject I felt that this was a work that would be accessible to a lay person as well as a scientist or academic. After reading about 1/2 of the book I decided I needed to have this one for the personal library. It was fascinating introduction to the concepts of how our species became "symbol based communicators"! In association with Amazon.com | |