Words on a page become windows on worlds of experiences when the brain goes to work. The reading process involves 17 regions of the brain as it holds letters and words in the working, or short term, memory only long enough to connect them with each other and cross reference with bits of information already stored. Through time and practice, the concept shifts into long term memory—which we call learning. It’s a little like assembling a puzzle to create a new picture or idea from someone else’s thoughts. Remarkable, when you think about it!
From birth, a child needs to be exposed to a word used about 200 times in context before they are able to understand and use it. Labeling and naming every day objects and activities for children and encouraging them to do the same builds the memory base they need for reading and learning. Rhyme, rhythm, ritual and repetition serve as the glue to make it stick.
Watching a TV or computer screen is no substitute. It offers only vicarious images. While the electronic screen captures the attention, it provides only a partial picture. The brain is busy recording the total experience; touch, smell, kinesthetic movement, and other people’s reactions. Personal interaction also provides a chance for practice, allowing for refinement and eventually, mastery. Pacing can also be flexible within a social context accommodating the child’s own learning style and speed. Together it’s just much more fun.
When reading development lags, look to Reading Specialists and Speech and Language Clinicians for help in assessment and remediation.
Audiologist and speech-language pathologist Maxine Young’s article “Working Memory, Language and Reading” discusses this topic in www.brainconnection.com for Dec 07.
“In the 1980s, two English researchers named Baddeley and Hitch coined the term ‘working memory’ for the ability to hold several facts or thoughts in memory temporarily while solving a problem or performing a task...
Working memory is required to understand spoken language; to comprehend what is read; to write sentences, paragraphs, and stories; to do problem-solving tasks, and perform some math operations. Research on children with language delays, that is children who develop language much later than the norm but who have normal nonverbal intelligence, shows that they have working memory problems.”
Please check out the entire article as well as the practical information on the website, and make time for complex yet simple enjoyment of reading for yourself and your students.
“Reading gives us someplace else to go when we have to stay where we are.” (Mason Cooley quoted in Readers’ Digest, Nov 07)
©copyright 2008, Sandra Stanton. For helpful articles, books, resources, Sandra's bio, calendar, news and contact info, go to www.ourbrainbuddies.com