Reading Process

I'll fully admit to facing a steep learning curve with respect to understanding what is happening in the brain when a child is learning to read. I find myself asking if I'm supposed to know this as a teacher: was there something I missed, or they didn't cover, in my BEd? I don't think I'm alone in class asking this question!

It is slowly starting to come into focus. David A. Sousa's book, How The Special Needs Brain Learns, is providing a lot of good information as I read chapter 5. After his explanation of the components of spoken language and an overview of concepts (e.g. phonemes and graphemes), he goes on to discuss what is actually happening in the brain during reading. Sousa is quoted below, along with the corresponding graphic from his article.

"For example, in reading the word dog, the optic nerves send signals to the visual cortex, and the visual processing system puts the alphabetic symbols together. The decoding process alerts the auditory processing system that recognizes the alphabetic symbols representing the sound "d/aw/g." Other brain regions, such as Broca's and Wernicke's areas, are coordinated by the frontal lobe for comprehension. If all systems work correctly, a mental image emerges in the mind's eye of a furry animal that barks (Gaillard et al., 2006; McCandliss, Cohen, & Dehaene, 2003; Shaywitz, 2003). Problems can occur almost anywhere in the system."

 Sousa, David A. (2006). How the Special Needs Brain Learns. (2nd. Ed.). Thousand Oaks (CA): Corwin Press Inc.


It is the red bold text in the above paragraph which seems to relate most directly to our current exploration of the processing mapping of reading, and these linking to the various processors of the brain as explored in a previous class (see photo below). As challenging as these studies are, it is also very interesting to begin to thoroughly explore the vast areas in which students may need support, and how that support is determined.