Introduction to The Science of Reading
Maryanne Wolf, in her book Proust and the Squid, references an incident from China in the 1930s where a man had a stroke and lost the ability to read (Alexia). What makes this story interesting is that the man was bilingual with the ability to speak and read in both English and Chinese.
After having the stroke, he lost the ability to read Chinese, but could still read English. He was a case study for Chinese neurologists who discovered that the stroke had affected the right side of his brain. The left side of his brain was unaffected. This led them to believe that reading Chinese characters uses the right hemisphere of the brain and reading the English alphabet uses the brain’s left hemisphere.
To read in English, we learn the 52 letters of the alphabet (upper and lower case) and their corresponding sounds. We then use those sounds to decode and read words. English is an alphabetic writing system. There is no Chinese alphabet.
The Chinese writing system is logographic, meaning it uses symbols (Chinese characters) to represent meanings rather than sounds. In learning to read Chinese, characters must be memorized and imprinted into memory as “pictures”. These pictures are stored in the right hemisphere of the brain. Learning the letters of the alphabet, which each have a unique sound, activates the left hemisphere of the brain.
The process of learning to read in these two languages, Chinese and English, aligns with the way children are taught to read using whole language and phonics. When children are taught to read using the whole language methodology, they essentially memorize words as wholes like Chinese characters. These “pictures” are committed to memory in the brain’s right hemisphere. Learning to read through phonics methodology by learning letters and sounds, engages the vision and sound centers in the brain's left hemisphere.
How do I know this? It’s the SCIENCE of READING!!
Cognitive scientists and neurologists have been studying the brain and how it functions in relation to reading for almost a century. Some of the first findings were published by Samuel Orton (Orton-Gillingham). Working in the 1920s, Orton did not have access to modern brain scanning equipment, but he knew from his work with brain-damaged adults that injuries to the left hemisphere of the brain produced symptoms similar to those he observed in children who struggled to read.
Over the next 100 years or so, educators, psychologists, and scientists conducted research and analyzed studies on how children learn to read. All of these findings, collectively, were named the “science of learning” or the “science of reading.” In 1990, modern technology gave these findings a boost with the use of brain scans.
Enter Modern Technology to The Science of Reading
MODERN TECHNOLOGY: fMRI - Functional magnetic resonance imaging is a scan of the brain that takes images of brain activity.
An fMRI can reveal what part of the brain is active during specific functions, such as lifting your arm, solving a math equation, or READING a book. Neuroscientists have completed scans of the brain to learn what parts are activated during each step of the reading process. Let’s see what they learned…
LEFT BRAIN, RIGHT BRAIN
When the brains of skilled readers were scanned, the left hemisphere of the brain was full of activity. The left hemisphere is where the language processing center is, along with a bunch of other important stuff. It is the logical side of our brain. When the brains of non-readers or dyslexic children and adults were scanned, the left hemisphere of the brain showed very little or no activity when exposed to words. The language processing part of the brain was not fully developed.
When we are born, we have two regions of the brain that are active and ready to go. The Occipital Lobe/Visual Cortex is the part of the brain that controls our vision. Broca’s Area in the frontal lobe is responsible for speech and sound processing. There is a third region of the brain that is not developed when we are born, but it shines bright on brain scans of proficient readers, the Parieto-Temporal region.
This process is explained by Dr. Stanislaus Dehaene, neuroscientist and writer of The Reading Brain :
“Our brains are set up to learn to speak; learning to read does not happen on its own. To read we must develop different parts of our brains and build connections between them. As a child reads a word, networks in the brain associated with vision activate first followed by the areas of the brain associated with speech. There are also changes in the brain as a child learns to read with a growth in fibers that connect the areas of speech and vision.
Reading in the primary grades requires a lot of short-term memory, children must analyze words letter by letter, convert each grapheme (letter) into a phoneme (sound), then listen in their mind to the word on the page and connect it to a word in their spoken language in order to enable understanding and comprehension. Beginning readers “listen” in their minds and connect what they hear to a spelling pattern or brain word in an area of the brain called the 'visual word form area'."
By completing this process over and over through systematic instruction and deliberate practice, the language processing parts of the brain build connections allowing us to read words automatically and make meaning for comprehension.
BACK TO WHOLE LANGUAGE
Let’s put a pause on vision, sounds, and brain science and go back to the whole language approach of memorizing words for a bit. There is a limit to the number of distinct symbols that can be learned and associated with given words, the estimate is 2,000-2,500 symbols stored in long-term memory.
Memorizing whole words as a reading strategy will eventually lead to reading failure by the ages of 7-10 because reading depends on accessing the word “symbol” in long-term memory or on decoding the first couple of letters of a word and then guessing. This strategy falls apart as children meet more complicated texts. They do not have a strategy to read multisyllabic, unknown words that may not be in their known vocabulary. It is impossible to guess a word you’ve never heard before.
In the introduction to this chapter, it was mentioned that up to 30% of children will learn to read regardless of the type of instruction they receive. These are the students who can become proficient readers through whole language instruction. Another 50% of students can learn to read but need systematic, explicit instruction. These students will likely be in intervention groups, not because they can’t learn to read, but because they aren’t being taught in the right way. Otherwise, they will need to learn to compensate or learn coping strategies to get by.
The remaining 15% may never learn to read proficiently without serious help. I do think it is interesting that while whole language and balanced literacy have been used to teach students to read in the primary grades, students who struggle to read and need support are often placed in intervention groups that use a phonics curriculum. Hmmmmmm.
DON’T BE FOOLED
The whole language/balanced literacy approach to reading may seem great in the primary grades where reading content is simple with pictures and ample context clues. Do the teachers who provide whole language instruction track these students through older grades to see that they are in fact proficient readers with a love of literature?
I encounter upper-grade students on a daily basis who sound out the beginning of a word and then guess. Leftover bad habits from balanced literacy instruction. This is because, as soon as students are faced with complex text, they likely struggle. There are no picture clues to help you in Harry Potter.
EMILY HANDFORD – SOLD A STORY
The introduction for the podcast “Sold a Story” by Emily Handford goes like this…
Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong
"There's an idea about how children learn to read that's held sway in schools for more than a generation — even though it was proven wrong by cognitive scientists decades ago. Teaching methods based on this idea can make it harder for children to learn how to read. In this podcast, host Emily Hanford investigates the influential authors who promote this idea and the company that sells their work. It's an exposé of how educators came to believe in something that isn't true and are now reckoning with the consequences — children harmed, money wasted, an education system upended.”
If you want to learn more about how whole language instruction has had a negatively profound impact on literacy in the United States, you MUST listen to “Sold a Story”.
If you want a quick explanation of why whole language and balanced literacy aren’t effective, I recommend watching “The Purple Challenge” video on YouTube.
You won’t regret it.
IN CONCLUSION
The overarching philosophy of whole language has always been that by exposing children to great literature they will naturally learn to read. I’m not buying it.
Think of what Martin Kozloff said,
“If your child memorizes a list of 100 sight words, they’ll be able to read those 100 words. But… if they learn how to sound out words, they’ll be able to read thousands and thousands of words on their own- even if they’ve never seen them before!”
And the more words they can read, the more books they can read. They won’t be limited to leveled books in the classroom library or a topic that’s easier to understand. They can explore their passions and read books that genuinely interest them.
Plus, when a child can read smoothly and effortlessly, it is much easier for them to focus their energy on actually understanding what they read. So it also improves their comprehension.
Mic Drop!
