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From: Linda Leopold Strauss <strauss>
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:16:57 -0400
One more word on what reading does for the brain. I read my NEW YORKERS out of order, and I just found the following in a January 28, 2008 issue, letter to the editor from Maryanne Wolf, Director, Center for Reading and Language Research, Tufts University. Prof. Wolf writes in response to a two-part article by Caleb Crain that appeared 12/24 and 12/31 (I haven't read those yet so can't comment). "As it develops expertise," Prof. Wolf says, "the circuitry for reading in the brain becomes both 'smaller' in its streamlined regions, and also 'larger' - that is, more widely activated-in those regions engaged in sophisticated thinking, like inference, critical analysis, and insight. This type of activation is the basis for 'deep reading' and the highest forms of thought in a society, from novel thinking to the deliberation of virtue." She goes on to say that information received digitally (information available in the "'Googled world' of novice readers") doesn't accomplish the same development in the brain because of its
"addictive immediacy" and "overwhelming volume," and because it invites
"neither time for concentrated analysis and inference nor the motivation.to think beyond all the information given." And that therefore the digital world, despite its many contributions, "may be the greatest threat yet to the endangered reading brain." I know this is different from the reading v. listening discussion that's been going on, but I thought it might be of interest to some of you, as it was to me.
Linda Leopold Strauss
THE PRINCESS GOWN (Houghton Mifflin, available Spring 2008)
A FAIRY CALLED HILARY (Holiday House)
REALLY, TRULY, EVERYTHING'S FINE (Marshall Cavendish)
Received on Fri 14 Mar 2008 11:16:57 AM CDT
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:16:57 -0400
One more word on what reading does for the brain. I read my NEW YORKERS out of order, and I just found the following in a January 28, 2008 issue, letter to the editor from Maryanne Wolf, Director, Center for Reading and Language Research, Tufts University. Prof. Wolf writes in response to a two-part article by Caleb Crain that appeared 12/24 and 12/31 (I haven't read those yet so can't comment). "As it develops expertise," Prof. Wolf says, "the circuitry for reading in the brain becomes both 'smaller' in its streamlined regions, and also 'larger' - that is, more widely activated-in those regions engaged in sophisticated thinking, like inference, critical analysis, and insight. This type of activation is the basis for 'deep reading' and the highest forms of thought in a society, from novel thinking to the deliberation of virtue." She goes on to say that information received digitally (information available in the "'Googled world' of novice readers") doesn't accomplish the same development in the brain because of its
"addictive immediacy" and "overwhelming volume," and because it invites
"neither time for concentrated analysis and inference nor the motivation.to think beyond all the information given." And that therefore the digital world, despite its many contributions, "may be the greatest threat yet to the endangered reading brain." I know this is different from the reading v. listening discussion that's been going on, but I thought it might be of interest to some of you, as it was to me.
Linda Leopold Strauss
THE PRINCESS GOWN (Houghton Mifflin, available Spring 2008)
A FAIRY CALLED HILARY (Holiday House)
REALLY, TRULY, EVERYTHING'S FINE (Marshall Cavendish)
Received on Fri 14 Mar 2008 11:16:57 AM CDT
