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Brain signatures of reading within different types of learners and across written languages: Evidence and implications for education
Citation
Wu, C.-Y., & O Brien, B. A. (2024). Brain signatures of reading within different types of learners and across written languages: Evidence and implications for education. In W. L. D. Hung, Azilawati Jamaludin, & Aishah Abdul Rahman (Eds.), Applying the science of learning to education: An insight into the mechanisms that shape learning (pp. 21-54). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5378-3_2
Abstract
Reading is a culturally acquired skill that is foundational to academic and personal growth. Unlike oral language skills, reading must be acquired through education. It is generally regarded that multiple cognitive, perceptual, and linguistic skills contribute to the process of reading, and this process, therefore, draws on multiple neurobiological systems that evolved within the brain for other purposes. A neurobiological level of analysis should provide insights into the reading process that can ultimately inform educational approaches which are most effective for different types of learners acquiring different types of scripts. This focus supplements a cognitive level of analysis, involving processes which cannot be directly observed (like metalinguistic awareness), as well as a level of analysis on observable behaviors, which does not specify learning mechanisms nor sources of learning difficulties (as in dysfluent reading). Focusing on the neurobiological level of analysis, the current chapter aims to provide a state-of-the-art overview of how the human brain adapts to learning to read—over the lifespan, within different types of learners, and across various written languages. We will begin by reviewing how the brain changes during reading development. This account comes from the comparisons between literates vs. illiterates, and children vs. adults. Next, we will examine how reading may differentially influence the brain with respect to the different writing systems and for learning to read in multiple languages. This phenomenon is particularly relevant to a growing population of bilingual learners given the large variabilities in the various scripts. Moving forward, we will consider how developmental dyslexia manifests in monolingual and bilingual readers across different writing systems. Finally, we will summarize how the brain changes in response to intervention for reading difficulties in monolingual readers and discuss the implications for reading intervention for bilingual readers. In this chapter, we hope to synthesize a neurobiological model of reading that can inform the mechanisms of learning and provide insights into effective education.
Date Issued
2024
ISBN
9789819953776 (print)
9789819953783 (online)
Publisher
Springer