Proust and the Squid
I’ve recently started Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, by Maryanne Wolf (professor of child development at Tufts University). To understand the history and development of the reading brain, Wolf interweaves ancient and modern linguistics, archaeology, education, literature, history, psychology and neuroscience—a heady brew.
It’s a little dense, so I’ll probably be reading it at least through the end of August. I only mention this because I have a feeling I’ll be blogging about this book a bit in the coming weeks. Dr. Wolf has an engaging writing style for an academic (I feel like I can say that having spent so many years in those hallowed halls), and with all those different disciplines—well, there’s something new to learn on practically every page.
First really interesting thing (p. 9): Did you know that when you read, and you read the word “bug,” for example, your brain activates not only the most common meaning for the word (crawly insect-type thing), but also the less common associations (Volkswagen, computer glitch, viral infection, annoy, listening device, etc.). I had no idea. Even when we’re reading a word in a context. In fact, the brain “stimulates a veritable treasure trove of knowledge about that word and the many words related to it.”
That’s really important. The richness, the depth, the scope of this treasure trove—it depends on what you bring to the reading table.
“Children with a rich repertoire of words and their associations will experience any text or any conversation in ways that are substantively different from children who do not have the same stored words and concepts.”
I have young kids and I spend a lot of time reading to them. Going through Curious George the other night for the 40th time I was wondering about the fact that young people differ from adults in that they like to hear the same stories over and over and over. I think this must be related to how they/we process information. Reading must be setting off different sparks in a 3 year old’s brain than it does in mine (and different again from the sparks in the brain of a young new reader). I’ll be interested to read any of your future blogs on what you learn about how ‘the reading brain’ matures and what that tells us about brain development.
[...] Did you know there is a part of the brain called Area 37? I had no idea. I learned this in Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. (Read my other entry about Proust and the Squid.) [...]