Excellent article published by Mind/Shift in which Maryanne Wolf discusses the importance of understanding how our brain functions with respect to learning to read. “Understanding that these developments are nothing more than brain differences that can be aided with systematic and explicit instruction, Wolf said, is a large but necessary step for everyone involved: students, parents and teachers. When children find they’re unable to read or read with much difficulty, they often believe that it’s the result of a bad or broken brain. Some teachers may also unwittingly hold beliefs that reading happens for all children by a kind of osmosis.”
Wolf is the author of “Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain.”