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EDUC 5953 - Educational Psychology I
Text: Sousa, D. A. (Ed.), (2010). Mind, brain, & education: Neuroscience implications for the
classroom.
Table of Contents:
Chpt. One: How science met technology
Chpt. Two: Neuroimaging tools and the evolution of educational neuroscience
Chpt. Three: The current impact of neuroscience on teaching and learning
Chpt. Four: The role of emotion and skilled intuition in learning
Chpt. Five: The Speaking brain
Chpt. Six: The Reading brain
Chpt. Seven: Constructing a reading brain
Chpt. Eight: The mathematical brain
Chpt. Nine: The calculating brain
Chpt. Ten: The computing brain
Chpt. Eleven: The creative-artistic brain
Chpt. Twelve: The future of educational neuroscience
Course Topics
Introduction - Educational neuroscience is a legitimate scientific area of study that overlaps
psychology, neuroscience and pedagogy. [See diagram – p. 2]
[ See Fig. 1.2 and Fig 1.3 Diagrams of the Brain ]
Chpt 1 – How Science Met Pedagogy
A. Technology used to study the living brain:
i. CAT Scan – 1970s
ii. MRI – 1980s
iii. PET Scan – 1970s
iv. fMRI – 1990s
B. Professional Development
i. Learning Styles – Dunn & Dunn 1970s
ii. Multiple Intelligences – Gardner 1980s
iii. Triarchic theory of Intelligence – Sternberg 1980s
iv. Emotional Intelligence – Goleman 1990s
v. Neurogenesis – Kempermann & Gage 2000s
vi. Neuroplasticity – Shaywitz 2000s, Simos et al 2000s
vii. Memory Levels and Learning – Sousa 2000s
Chpt 2 - Neuroimaging – Evolution of Educational Neuroscience
A. We now understand that executive functions of the brain ‘connect’ activities among
various areas that deal with specific activities.
B. We now realize that at an early age (6-10 months), during language development,
phoneme discrimination becomes more language-specific (English, Mandarin). This
impacts a child’s capacity to learn a second language. NOTE: Interesting finding that
human social interactions impact phoneme discrimination differently than audio-video
recordings do.
C. Although most of the neural networks are common to all people, their efficiency varies,
partly due to genetic variations. The expression of these genetic variations is influenced by
experience. There is evidence that aspects of the culture in which children are raised can
influence the way in which genes shape neural networks – ultimately influencing child
behaviour. Example: The major development of the executive function occurs between four
and seven years of age. Training on conflict management during that period produced
improved conflict resolution skills as compared to other training techniques. Similarly,
working memory training tasks and meditation produced improved students’ attention in
classrooms where they were provided. This means that this type of attention training could
be beneficial for students who have poorer initial efficiency. [i.e – some forms of attention
can be taught.]
D. Studies in early education show that, with practice the connectivity between brain areas is
strengthened, and tasks can be carried out more efficiently.
Activity: Choose one of these statements and examine its potential impact on the teaching-learning process
in your classroom.
Chpt 3 - Impact of Neuroscience on Teaching and Learning
A. Proper learning behaviour is no longer defined by students sitting quietly, doing exactly what
they are told without question or discussion, and reporting back memorized facts on tests.
The work of Vygotsky on the zone of proximal development (ZPD) and Krashen on reducing
the negative effects of stress on learning and the practice of individualizing instruction are
supported by our current understanding of how the brain operates during learning
experiences.
B. We can learn a lot about motivation, intrinsic rewards, and ZPD from popular computer
games.
C. Krashen’s ‘affective filter’ helps us understand the neurological impact of stress and emotion
on brain functions during the learning process.
D. We cannot learn anything that is not recognized by our brains. The role of the reticular
activating system (RAS) is the basis upon which all our lessons should be planned.
E. Dopamine is a learning-friendly neurotransmitter. It promotes motivation, enhances memory,
and provides focus as well as making us feel good. Dopamine production can be activated by
certain environmental influences and teaching strategies.
F. Dopamine ‘drop’ occurs when a student experience the negative emotions related to making
a mistake. Effective and frequent formative assessments can reduce the fear of making
mistakes.
G. Neuroplasticity and pattern-based memory provide us with the basis to choose effective
teaching strategies. Understanding these two concepts is fundamental when planning lessons
that will enhance student learning.
H. Intelligence is not a fixed capacity – it can be increased by making our brains’ neural networks
stronger, more efficient, accessible, and durable. Teachers who collaborate in ‘learning
communities’ can help students become more intelligent.
Activity: Choose one of these statements and examine its potential impact on the teaching-learning
process in your classroom.
Chpt 4 - Role of Emotion and Skilled Intuition in Learning
A. The message from social and affective neuroscience is clear: no longer can we think of
learning as separate from or disrupted by emotion… building academic knowledge involves
integrating emotion and cognition in social context.
B. The learners’ emotional reaction to the outcome of their efforts consciously or nonconsciously
shapes their future behaviour. Therefore efficient learners build useful and relevant intuitions
that guide their thinking and decision making. These intuitions are not randomly generated,
they are shaped and organized by experience and are specific and relevant to the particular
context in which they were learned.
C. Relevant intuitions and emotional learning is enhanced when teachers foster emotional
connection to the material students are learning. One way is to offer students a choice of how
they will learn the material (writing/performing a play, doing a research report, designing a
model). Another is to assign open-ended problems that create space for emotional reactions.
D. Intuition can be understood as the incorporation of the nonconscious emotional signals into
knowledge acquisition. Building curricular opportunities for students to develop skilled
intuitions is therefore a meta-learning process.
E. We must actively manage the social and emotional climate of the classroom. Students will
allow themselves to experience failure only if they can do so within an atmosphere of trust
and respect.
F. Critical thinking requires students to use intuition and emotional signals to know how, when,
and why to use the new knowledge they have acquired.
Chpt 5 - The Speaking Brain
Much of what we often believe is true about how the brain enables human speech was discovered in
the mid 1800’s using negative reasoning (i.e. - If a part of the brain was injured and the patient lost
an ability/function then that part of the brain was the part responsible for that function).
Pierre Broca – 1865 Broca’s area enables us to speak.
Carl Wernicke – 1875 Wernicke’s area enables us to understand language.
Also on the left side of the brain we find the arcuate fasciculus, a large bundle of nerves that connects
Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, and makes it possible for us to communicate using language. The direct
and synchronized connection between these two areas makes rapid back and forth conversation
possible. Broca’s area also seems to be involved in some semantic and working memory processes –
providing coordination and integration or neural information from other language processing areas of
the brain (see Fig. 1)
Figure 1. – Process Functions and Locations of the Brain
Brain Area
Process
Right middle and superior temporal Understanding semantics
Bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal Monitoring coherence
Left inferior frontal-left anterior temporal Integrating text
Bilateral medial frontal/posterior right temporal/parietal
Interpreting the perspective of the agent or actor
Left dominant, bilateral intraparietal sulcus Imaging spatial information
Prefrontal cortex, parietal lobes Working memory – holding language while other processes are performed
Medial temporal lobe, prefrontal regions, parietal lobe
Episodic memory – recalling an experience
Temporal and frontal lobes Word processing & grammatical processing
Lateral dominance of the brain’s left hemisphere for language processing has been supported by
modern structural and functional image studies. For most people the left side of the brain controls
language (96% of right handed and 76% of left handed people).
The knowledge of and competence for human language is acquired through
various means and modality types. Linguists regard speaking, signing, and
language comprehension as primary faculties of language, i.e., innate or inherent
and biologically determined, whereas they regard reading and writing as
secondary abilities. Indeed, the native or first language (L1) is acquired during the
first years of life through such primary faculties while children are rapidly
expanding their linguistic knowledge (2). In contrast, reading and writing are
learned with much conscious effort and repetition, usually at school.
Speech in infants develops from babbling at around 6 to 8 months of age, to the
one-word stage at 10 to 12 months, and then to the two-word stage around 2
years. Note that sign systems are spontaneously acquired by both deaf and
hearing infants in a similar developmental course. Speech perception and even
grammatical knowledge develops much earlier, within the first months after birth.
(Sakai, 2005)1
At school age typically developing children were assumed to have a fully developed spoken language
system that could serve as the basis for learning to read and write. This being said, speech and
language processing are only part of the cognitive demands placed on the brain when children are in
school. If cognitive resources are being spent on other competing processes, children may not have
optimal capacity to understand and produce spoken language (e.g. – listening to the teacher and
making notes at the same time OR processing feelings of fear or sadness while being expected to
speak.)
Language and the Right Hemisphere
Although the left hemisphere is the dominant one for language, the right hemisphere is also involved.
It has long been seen as responsible for understanding and producing prosody, the intonational and
emotional aspects of spoken language. While prosodic elements contribute essential information to
verbal communication, they are not considered to be language in the same sense as phonological
(related to the sounds of speech), semantic (related to the meaning of words) and syntactical (related
to the grammatical arrangement of words) elements of language. The right hemisphere is also
involved in interpreting humor and metaphors, making inferences, understanding sarcasm or irony,
and comprehending discourse. The right hemisphere may also assist in understanding more
demanding semantic tasks such as when words are only distantly related, being used to imply a
meaning other than the literal ones, or have two very different meanings. This makes the right
hemisphere essential when we draw inferences from our experiences. While language is
predominantly left hemisphere function, both hemispheres are necessary for a fully functioning,
flexible spoken language system. Our ability to examine the brain using fMRI technology is also
challenging previously believed knowledge on how speech and language develop.
Speech and Language Development
1 Sakai, K. L (2005) Language Acquisition and Brain Development , downloaded on Dec 22,2014 from www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 310 4 NOVEMBER 2005
Behavioural information gathered in the past led us to believe that, by school age, children were able
to clearly produce most speech sounds, had mastered basic grammatical aspects of spoken language,
and acquired a sufficient lexicon to talk about various concrete and abstract experiences. Having
learned language, they were now ready to use language as a vehicle to expand their learning across
the curriculum.
We now know that behaviour measures are not exact measures of brain function, and may even lead
to incorrect conclusions about brain function. We know that not all children come to school with fully
developed speech and language, ready to use these skills for reading, writing, and oral expression.
Even older children vary in their capacity to understand and use higher order or more abstract
language. During school years children are exposed to experiences that change the brain’s structures
and functions. The brain develops in response to the environmental input it receives. Although
genetics plays an important role, there are differences in the rate at which the development of brain
processes occurs.
We also know that even if children are behaviourally performing in the same way as adults, they have
different neural patterns that may reflect the use of different cognitive strategies. Children’s brains
work harder than adult’s brains to accomplish the same behavioural result. This is especially true of
boys because it appears that boys do not convert sensory information to language as easily as girls
do. Not all performance is gender based though, language skills are determined by a child’s genetic
make-up and the amount of time and effort spent on practice and development of those skills. Not all
children are capable of the same level of verbal expression; some are verbally fluent while others
struggle to put their thoughts into words.
Differences in language skills are not related to innate intelligence or motivation; rather they are
related to individual differences in brain development. Being slower does not necessarily mean that a
child knows or understands less; it simply means that the child needs more time to express what he
or she knows.
Bilingualism
Mastering two languages has traditionally been seen as an age-related issue. Behavioural studies
showed that young children who were exposed to two languages before the age of seven developed
proficiency in both languages. Brain imaging studies now show that bilingual adults who were
exposed to two languages before age five actually process their languages in overlapping brain areas
– the same areas that monolingual children use. Bilinguals who learn their second language later
appear to use different strategies. Their brains function in a more bilateral manner with more
distributive activation in the frontal lobe, in areas thought to represent working memory and
inhibitory processes. This pattern of activation is thought to be consistent with greater cognitive
effort and less automatic processing. It seems that the most efficient use of neural resources occurs
when language learning happens early.
Neuroplasticity
Previous beliefs about the brain being fully formed at birth have been proven incorrect. Both the
structures and functions of brain cells have been proven to change during one’s life. This plasticity is
greatest in the earliest years of life. Even in adolescence language networks interact with other
cortical resources, such as memory, and thereby change the brain’s structures and functions. New
neurons are created in the hippocampus, a process that impacts the formation of memories. The
frontal lobe continues to develop thorough early adulthood, making it possible for adolescents to
develop metacognitive and metalinguistic skills. This enables adolescents to think more abstractly
and to communicate and think more flexibly and creatively. Adolescence is when sophisticated forms
of communication and language use can develop.
Research Findings to Consider
The acquisition and refinement of speech and language is ongoing until early adulthood.
School-age children do not have fully developed language systems.
Children are less efficient language processors than adults.
Gender differences in language processing have been observed.
Boys may have more difficulty with verbal expression, and how information is presented may
make a greater difference in their ability to learn.
The brain learns a second language most easily before school age.
During school years, children’s brains continue to mature and develop with both age and new
experiences with language.
Children may not be able to coordinate ‘listening to language’ and ‘writing language’.
Simply because a child can behaviourally perform a task does not mean that the brain is
efficiently performing that task.
Language skills can vary widely in groups of same-age children.
Spoken language is not the only means to determine whether a child understands a concept.
Language is not simply a tool which children apply to the learning process. It is a growing, changing
skill.
Chpt 6 - The Reading Brain
In today’s world reading is our most powerful portal to knowledge. Formal education reinforces this
first by focusing on children’s need to ‘learn to read’ and then upon their need to use ‘reading to
learn’. In many ways the learning to read/reading to learn link sets the stage for most measures of
children’s success for the remainder of their lives.
Unlike hearing, speaking, and basic motor skills, reading is a relatively recent cultural invention. Most
historians/archeologists date the origins of written records to about 4000 BCE, with the creation of
syllables around 2600 BCE and finally the first alphabets around 1800 BCE. It wasn’t until when
Socrates (469 - 399 BCE) begrudgingly accepted the written word as a necessary supplement to the
oral tradition of teaching that learning from texts became well established. Even then he argued
‘that a dependence on the technology of the alphabet will alter a person’s mind,
and not for the better. By substituting outer symbols for inner memories, writing
threatens to make us shallower thinkers, preventing us from achieving the
intellectual depth that leads to wisdom and true happiness.’
Nicholas Carr (2010)2
As we contemplate Socrates’ prediction, and Carr’s fear about how the internet exacerbates our
dependence upon ‘reading to learn’ we can take some solace in the fact that neuroscience offers
us better ways to understand the impact that the alphabet has had on altering our brains. The fact
that the human brain was not evolved to read may explain why reading is not a naturally acquired
skill and therefore must be taught explicitly and formally in schools. Once again we see that the
combination of behavioural and neurological studies provide us with knowledge that guide our
teaching.
Two Routes for Reading
We begin this task with an understanding that reading and writing are extensions of language,
which is hard wired in our brains. We know that language is mainly a left hemisphere function that
is guided by right hemisphere support. To this we add our understanding of how the brain uses
short term memory to convert written symbols into the sounds and meanings that enable
communication and learning. Reading begins with the visual input from the ‘page’ which triggers
the left posterior portion of the brain known as the visual word form area. This area relates visual
(occipital lobe) and language (temporal lobe) neural systems that develop even before birth and far
before learning to read. It does so by transforming visual input into letters and words. These letters
and words are then transformed into meaning using two separate processes (routes).
The phonological route decodes a string of letters and translates them into a sound pattern that
may match a speech pattern which is meaningful. This route is reserved for words that are regular
2 Carr, Nicholas, (2010). The shallows : what the Internet is doing to our brains
i.e. – that follow the typical correspondence between graphemes and phonemes. If a word is
irregular (rare or novel) we use the phonological route try to sound it out. This is a relatively slow,
systematic route that relies on the left posterior temporoparietal brain regions.
The second process is the direct route and it by-passes the sound pattern stage and attempts to
match the printed word directly with its meaning. The words we read using the direct route are
‘sight words’, ones that we frequently encounter and know so well that we can jump from sight to
meaning. We also use this route for irregular words that we have memorized because regular
pronunciation rules do not apply. This route, which lies on the left posterior occipitotemporal
region, tends to be must faster – in typical adult readers it responds to a word in about 180
milliseconds but only when the word is in the written language that one as learned.
The typical healthy reader is thought to use both routes constantly and interactively. As we learn to
read it seems logical that we would use the direct route more often if the words become part of
our ‘sight word’ complement. Thus the selective response of the visual word form area is education
dependent. This could explain why, for healthy children, reading becomes easier with more
practice.
Timeline of Reading in the Brain
It is important to note that visual recognition (seeing) differs based upon what we are looking at.
We are genetically predisposed to perceive faces and places much more so than words. This means
that the areas that enable us to recognize faces and places are located in relatively fixed places in
the brain, while the word form area is less precisely located. This supports the belief that
specialization for perceiving faces and places is genetically guided, whereas specialization for
letters and words is not. It is possible that human evolution has caused areas within the neocortex
that are devoted to the perception of objects to become specialized for recognizing faces and
places and that the word form area is still evolving as a result of neuronal recycling. If so, we may
not have to teach reading in a few thousand more years!
The process of making sense of a visual stimulus is sometimes referred to as the N1 response3. This
process occurs whenever a person sees a face, place, or word. In typical adult readers the response
is left lateralized for words and right lateralized for faces. When an adult sees a word the response
time is typically 400-500 msecs between perceiving a word and recognizing it. For skilled adult
readers this response time reduces to 150-200 msecs. During these periods of time higher-order
cognitive processing also occurs, processing that extracts sound and meaning from the printed
word. Interestingly, these higher-order processes do not wait for visual analysis to be completed.
Tihs may be why we can raed wrods that have all the crroect letrtes but in the worng odrer.
3 The N1 response is an event related potential (ERP) used in cognitive neuroscience to study the physiological responses to sensory stimulus when the brain processes information. The N means the wave response is negative and the 1 means it occurs about 100 msec after the stimulation.
Cross-Linguistic Differences
Orthographical transparency is one way of describing language. This is a measure of how much a
single letter or group of letters (grapheme) represent a single sound (phoneme). Italian and Spanish
have nearly a 1:1 relationship which means the spelling of a word enables its correct pronunciation. If
you can spell a word, you can pronounce it and vice versa. Languages like English have many
exceptions and therefore have poor transparency. In English there are nearly thirty pronunciations
for every grapheme! Some languages such as Japanese and Cherokee use syllables rather than letters
to form written words [e.g. – In Japanese, San means three, Dan means degree, so Sandan means
third degree. Likewise the term for foreigner, Gaijin is a combination of gai (outside) and jin
(person)]. Other languages, like Chinese, represent words with symbols and are referred to as
logographic systems. These languages contain many symbols and many can be interpreted in multiple
ways. For example, the Chinese word for foreigner is
鬼佬 or 老外 where the symbols 老 (lǎo, "old, always") + 外 (wài, "outlander, foreign")
老外4 can also mean ‘foreign devil’ which is an insult, or ‘ghost man’ which alludes to white skinned
complexion of many foreign visitors.
Development of the Reading Brain
As the reading brain develops it changes by: 1. increasing its specialization of the left hemisphere, 2.
decreasing its use of the left anterior area, and 3. increasing its use of left posterior. The increased
specialization of the left hemisphere is likely due to the brain’s increased ability to recognize a wide
variety of symbols as the same letter. The multiple visuospatial patterns of the various ways of
representing each letter of the alphabet are transformed into twenty-six categories of the English
alphabet. The shift from the use of the anterior to the posterior may be due to the shift from
phonological decoding to automatic word recognition. This means that the working memory
processes of the left anterior area are no longer required because the direct route is capable of
processing a word quickly. As the posterior region matures it supports fluent, automatic reading.
At the same time that these changes occur, the brain increases it capacity to respond to printed
stimuli as compared to other visual inputs. In non-reading kindergartners the N1 word response shifts
from zero toward the typical 150 – 200 msecs of a high functioning adult reader. The larger the
difference between N1 word response and N1 symbol response the faster the children read. This
integration between print and sound continues to develop for many years.
Reading Difficulty in the Brain – Developmental Dyslexia
Dyslexia, the most commonly identified reading disability, is defined as difficulty in reading or spelling
words accurately and/or fluently given average or higher than average cognitive ability. This is
associated with a weakness in phonological processing skills. It is a heterogeneous disorder that may
4 Pronounced kwai lo
result from a variety of specific underlying difficulties that vary from child to child, including specific
deficits in automaticity or auditory and visual perception.
Dyslexic children consistently exhibit decreased or absent activations in the left posterior brain
regions when performing tasks that require phonological or orthographic processing, when compared
to reading-matched and age-matched readers. Readers with dyslexia often exhibit increased
activation in frontal brain regions and the right-hemisphere posterior regions. This may be due to a
compensation for weaker posterior reading networks. Frontal activations for these readers do not
differ from reading matched children. Adolescents with dyslexia who improve or compensate appear
to do so by exploiting this atypical use of frontal-lobe regions rather than by the development of left
posterior reading systems. Children with dyslexia show less word-specific response to print (N1) and
less left hemisphere lateralization than non-dyslexic readers. They do not respond to words
differently than symbols.
Structural Brain Differences that Reflect Functional Brain Differences
The brain consists of two types of matter – gray matter and white matter.
Gray matter is composed of neuronal cell bodies while white matter is composed of myelinated axon
tracts. Readers with dyslexia show less gray matter volume in several regions associated with reading.
Even when compared to younger reading-matched children, readers with dyslexia show less gray
matter in the left hemisphere temporoparietal region in which they show reduced activation. Thus
there is some correspondence between functional and structural brain differences in dyslexia. Better
organized white matter in the left posterior region is associated with better reading skill among
healthy individuals. White matter tracts in the left frontal regions also reflect weaker connections in
readers with dyslexia. These individuals also have greater than normal white matter connectivity in
the corpus callosum, which connects regions of the left and right hemispheres. These findings suggest
that, in dyslexia, white matter pathways supporting reading project too weakly within the primary
reading pathways of the linguistic left hemisphere, but they project too strongly between
hemispheres (which may reflect an atypical reliance on right hemisphere regions for reading).
How Intervention Affects the Struggling Reader’s Brain
Reading interventions can change the structure and function of the brain. Due to brain plasticity left-
hemisphere brain regions that are typically under activated in dyslexia exhibit a gain in activation
after effective intervention (Lindamood-Bell program for adults, FastForWord for children). Children
with dyslexia who had under activated left temporoparietal and frontal brain regions showed gains in
activation in those regions after effective remediation. Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing program
and Phon-Graphix interventions resulted in a shift from greater activation in the right hemisphere to
greater left hemisphere activation and normalization of white matter structure. Effective
interventions with dyslexic readers can also strengthen activation in brain regions not typically
engaged in reading. Effective interventions may act in two ways – normalization of the brain and
brain compensation. These affects can be long lasting.
Prevention or early treatment of dyslexia yields better outcomes that later treatment. Neuroscience
methods have shown surprising strength in predicting future reading difficulty. A near-term goal
could be the prediction and prevention of dyslexia. In general, brain imaging combined with familial
information may facilitate preventive interventions that allow more children to succeed at learning to
read.
Chpt 7 - Constructing a Reading Brain
Expectations for neuroscience-based easy-to-follow recipes for classroom practice are unrealistic but
in combination with what we know from cognitive, developmental, and other learning sciences,
neuroscience can provide a new perspective on education.
There is no single part of the brain that ‘does’ reading. The brain is simply not designed for reading.
As we learn to read, we are borrowing from and building upon multiple neural systems, each with
their own specialization and actually constructing a brain that can read. Learning to read involves the
development of several constituent systems and then connecting those systems so that they work in
concert automatically and fluently. This process takes years, beginning before formal schooling and
extending throughout the school years.
The key systems that are required to read include the orthographic system that enables the visual
processing of text, the phonological system used to process the sounds of language, and the semantic
system used to connect meaning to words.
Visual Processing: Orthography
The first task for a reader is to make sense of the marks on a page. This begins with recognizing the
orthographic symbols of the language (for us the Roman alphabet) – a task that is difficult because
the symbols are arbitrary, abstract and sometimes easily confused. Distinguishing between letters
requires a highly sensitive visual system. The occipital lobes in the visual cortex enable us to identify
lines, curves, angles, terminals and junctions that form written symbols. These visual elements are
combined to create letters and words that we see on the page. In order to read we must make
meaning of the patterns that we see.
ɡet RAY away
English small letters for the verb move Capital letters for your instructor’s first name Small letters for a place that is at a distance Two Chinese symbols for Ai (the English word ‘love’ ) Chinese symbols for Wǒ and Xiànzài5 (the English words ‘Me’ and ‘Now’)
As we ‘read’ each of these patterns the pattern that we ‘see’ is processed by two separate regions of
the brain. One pathway (ventral pathway) determines ‘what’ is being seen and transfers the
information to the temporal lobes. The ventral pathway is specialized for processing colour, form,
texture, patterns, and fine detail. Learning to read appears to involve adapting and specializing the
ventral visual stream through practice with printed words.
The other (dorsal pathway) determines ‘where’ we are seeing the symbol, which allows us to place
what we in some order. (i.e. - to place parts of a symbol, letter or word in order from left to right or
up to down. The dorsal pathway enables a reader to move across the page in a complicated pattern
of fixations (periods of relative stillness) and saccades (brief jumps across the text). The dorsal stream
is involved in controlling eye movements and dorsal stream deficits have been associated with
reading difficulties. Activation of the dorsal stream is much reduced in adults with dyslexia. Given that
5 Pronounced who wa and shia si
爱 我
现
English is read from left to right and Chinese from top to bottom we can see that both pathways are
essential for making meaning of the symbols.
Building a brain that reads involves developing these two pathways (streams). Therefore children
who are learning how to read are truly changing their brains.
The fusiform gyrus is a structure that runs along the base of the brain and contains a sub-region that
has become known as the word form area. This area is activated by stimuli that are word-like (i.e. –
for us this means they follow the rules of English language). If removed surgically the individual loses
their ability to read. The fusiform gyrus enables us to recognize faces, a skill that far precedes reading
skills. The current belief is that a portion of this part of the brain has become specialized for word
processing. This specialization progresses over time and with experience with words. It is absent in
kindergartners, present in second graders, and continues to develop through adolescence. Its
development is correlated with the recognition of familiar letter patterns (decoding automaticity)
which is an essential skill in reading. Adults who are not experts at reading (particularly those with
dyslexia) show no activation of this area during reading.
Auditory Processing Phonology
Phonology involves the sound system of a language. Phonological processing systems related to
rhymes develop early. In fact the region associated with speech processing, the superior temporal
sulcus is sensitive to speech very early in the course of typical development. This area is used for
both spoken and written language processing which has been proven by studies that show that silent
reading activates this region.
Activities that emphasize the sound structure of language help to develop phonological awareness.
This is important because phonological awareness appears to be positively correlated with reading
skill throughout school. This may be explained by the “Matthew Effect’ which suggests that lack of
ability cause lack of performance/participation, which then leads to lower performance compared to
those who particpate at higher levels.
The connection between speech and reading is supported by the belief that learning to read, by
changing the phonological processing systems changes the way speech is anlayzed and phonemes are
remembered. As a result of reading, whole word sounds are automatically broken up into sound
constituents thereby changing language processing. The bonus is that by keeping track of phoneme
constituents a reader is can remember novel word sounds more accurately.
Connectivity: Mapping Orthography to Phonology
The two best predictors of reading achievement in early elementary school are letter identification
(knowing graphemes)and phonological awareness (knowing phonemes). These two sets of knowledge
map onto one another. Learnin g these mappings is a skill we call decoding, a skill that is required for
a child to learn to read. Even this step is difficult when learning to read in English because the English
language has a ‘deep orthography’; the mapping of grapheme to phoneme is not one-to-one like it is
in some languages. This is also why it is difficult to learn how to spell in English. In fact, studies show
that there are two areas of the brain responsible for this task. For easy, familiar orthgrapic-to-
phonological mappings the posterior regions are activated, while more difficult mappings rely on
more anterior regions. Other differences in mapping indicate that adults and older children activate
regions associated with automaticity while younger children do not. Furthermore, children who lack
activation in the posterior regions exhibit reading disability. Fortunately, we find that this activation
can be increased through the use of phonologically-based interventions that focus on letter-sound
mappings and this improves reading ability. It is important to realize that the activation of individual
regions is not enough to learn to read well. These regions are part of a more complex interconnected
system and the dynamics of the system may either enable us to read well or experience dyslexia.
Uncoordinated processing may be characteristic of poor reading.
Meaning Processing: Semantics
Studies of family environments provide us with valuable information for understanding and assisting
poor readers. By age three, 86 to 98 percent of a child’s vocabulary consists of words in his or her
caregivers’ vocabulary. Children who grow up in low-income households in which they are not spoken
to extensively and are not exposed to a variety of words begin school with many fewer words than
their peers from higher-income households. This may be related to the finding that children in
professional families hear eleven million words per year while those in families receiving welfare hear
only three million. Alarmingly, the vocabulary gap created from this difference remained for years
later (Matthew Effect ?)
The development of speech results from hearing words and developing a spoken-vocabulary which
we refer to as lexicon. This lexicon enables children to make meaning not only when speaking but
also when reading. If a word grapheme activates a phoneme that is common in spoken-vocabulary it
triggers the activation of other words that the brain has connected to that phoneme. When this
happens the reader goes from decoding a word to developing a robust meaning of the word in
context to other words. The capacity to relate written words to spoken words as well as other written
words depends upon the same brain regions. Since spoken and written lexicon are interconnected, a
child expands both speaking and reading at the same time. In fact, by the time a child is in third
grade, there is a shift from spoken to written language as the source of most new entries in his or her
lexicon.
Semantics is the development of meaning of words or phrases in our vocabulary. Understanding
semantics is therefore very valuable when teaching a child to read. It appears as if the lexical
information that enables semantics is stored in a distributive fashion throughout the brain and the
locations depend upon a variety of elements associated with words (action-orientation, kinesthetic,
tactile, visual, auditory, orthographic, and phonological). When a word is read our brain associates it
with each of the elements that it has attached to the word – how it feels, looks, smells, moves, etc..
This belief about how lexical information is stored supports the current beliefs of the value of multi-
sensory instruction. Although it is distributed throughout the brain vocabulary knowledge appears to
be organized into semantic networks. Words that are conceptually related to one another are linked
into semantic networks. The richer your vocabulary, the richer your semantic networks, the more
connections you can make among lexical items, and the fuller your understanding of what you are
reading.
Vocabulary and conceptual knowledge are also organized in terms of schemata. A schema is an
organized way of perceiving cognitively and responding to a complex situation or set of stimuli – a
way that the brain connects perceptions/experiences that have something in common. Activation of
one stimuli (seeing the word ‘restaurant’) activates the schemata that contain the word and thereby
enable the reader to put the word in context and provide it with greater meaning. Schemata not only
expand our understanding of a word, they enable us to predict related words that may follow as we
read a passage. If readers do not have densely developed semantic networks and rich schemata, their
strategies for determining meaning when they read are limited.
Making Sense of It All: Comprehension
Learning how to decode and the development of vocabulary are necessary but they do not constitute
comprehension. This difference was clear to Benjamin Bloom who defined knowledge
as observation or recall both of which fall below comprehension (understanding) on his taxonomy. In
fact if we examine the definition of the word ‘read’ we see that it is ‘to look at and comprehend the
meaning of (written or printed matter) by mentally interpreting the characters or symbols of which it
is composed’.
Reading is an active, interactive and thoughtful dynamic transaction between the reader and the text
that consists of both a process and a product. The processes include critical analysis, making
inferences based on the use of prior knowledge, generating and answering questions, imaging,
predicting, clarifying and summarizing. This depth of reading can be enhanced by teachers who focus
on ‘dialogic reading’6. Reading for comprehension not only activates more of the regions of the brain
than reading without comprehension (simply looking at the words) it actually activates another
region (medial ventral orbitofrontal cortex) which is associated with our brain’s reward process.
Reading for comprehension is perceived by the brain as a rewarding experience.
6 Arnold, Lonigan, Whitehurst, & Epstein (1994), Accelerating language development through picture book reading.
Chpt 8 - The Mathematical Brain
Chpt 9 - The Calculating Brain
Chpt 10 - The Computing Brain
Chpt 11 - The Creative-Artistic Brain
Chpt 12 - The Future of Educational Neuroscience