The act of reading is a miracle. Every new reader's brain possesses the extraordinary capacity to rearrange itself beyond its original abilities in order to understand written symbols. But how does the brain learn to read? As world-renowned cognitive neuroscientist and scholar of reading Maryanne Wolf explains in this impassioned book, we taught our brain to read only a few thousand years ago, and in the process changed the intellectual evolution of our species.
Wolf tells us that the brain that examined tiny clay tablets in the cuneiform script of the Sumerians is configured differently from the brain that reads alphabets or of one literate in today's technology.
There are critical implications to such an evolving brain. Just as writing reduced the need for memory, the proliferation of information and the particular requirements of digital culture may short-circuit some of written language's unique contributions—with potentially profound consequences for our future. 
Turning her attention to the development of the individual reading brain, Wolf draws on her expertise in dyslexia to investigate what happens when the brain finds it difficult to read. Interweaving her vast knowledge of neuroscience, psychology, literature, and linguistics, Wolf takes the reader from the brains of a pre-literate Homer to a literacy-ambivalent Plato, from an infant listening to Goodnight Moon to an expert reader of Proust, and finally to an often misunderstood child with dyslexia whose gifts may be as real as the challenges he or she faces.
As we come to appreciate how the evolution and development of reading have changed the very arrangement of our brain and our intellectual life, we begin to realize with ever greater comprehension that we truly are what we read. Ambitious, provocative, and rich with examples, Proust and the Squid celebrates reading, one of the single most remarkable inventions in history. Once embarked on this magnificent story of the reading brain, you will never again take for granted your ability to absorb the written word.

Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain

History

Wolf, Maryanne

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Harper

"Human beings were never born to read," writes Tufts University cognitive neuroscientist and child development expert Maryanne Wolf. Reading is a human invention that reflects how the brain rearranges itself to learn something new. In this ambitious, provocative book, Wolf chronicles the remarkable journey of the reading brain not only over the past five thousand years, since writing began, but also over the course of a single child's life, showing in the process why children with dyslexia have reading difficulties and singular gifts. 
Lively, erudite, and rich with examples, Proust and the Squid asserts that the brain that examined the tiny clay tablets of the Sumerians was a very different brain from the one that is immersed in today's technology-driven literacy. The potential transformations in this changed reading brain, Wolf argues, have profound implications for every child and for the intellectual development of our species.

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Psychology & Counseling

Harper-perennial

The author of the acclaimed Proust and the Squid follows up with a lively, ambitious, and deeply informative book that considers the future of the reading brain and our capacity for critical thinking, empathy, and reflection as we become increasingly dependent on digital technologies. 
A decade ago, Maryanne Wolf’s Proust and the Squid revealed what we know about how the brain learns to read and how reading changes the way we think and feel. Since then, the ways we process written language have changed dramatically with many concerned about both their own changes and that of children. New research on the reading brain chronicles these changes in the brains of children and adults as they learn to read while immersed in a digitally dominated medium.
Drawing deeply on this research, this book comprises a series of letters Wolf writes to us―her beloved readers―to describe her concerns and her hopes about what is happening to the reading brain as it unavoidably changes to adapt to digital mediums. Wolf raises difficult questions, including:
<ul>
<li>Will children learn to incorporate the full range of "deep reading" processes that are at the core of the expert reading brain?</li>
<li>Will the mix of a seemingly infinite set of distractions for children’s attention and their quick access to immediate, voluminous information alter their ability to think for themselves?</li>
<li>With information at their fingertips, will the next generation learn to build their own storehouse of knowledge, which could impede the ability to make analogies and draw inferences from what they know?</li>
<li>Will all these influences, in turn, change the formation in children and the use in adults of "slower" cognitive processes like critical thinking, personal reflection, imagination, and empathy that comprise deep reading and that influence both how we think and how we live our lives?</li>
<li>Will the chain of digital influences ultimately influence the use of the critical analytical and empathic capacities necessary for a democratic society?</li>
<li>How can we preserve deep reading processes in future iterations of the reading brain?</li>
<li>Who are the "good readers" of every epoch?</li>
</ul>
Concerns about attention span, critical reasoning, and over-reliance on technology are never just about children―Wolf herself has found that, though she is a reading expert, her ability to read deeply has been impacted as she has become, inevitably, increasingly dependent on screens.
Wolf draws on neuroscience, literature, education, technology, and philosophy and blends historical, literary, and scientific facts with down-to-earth examples and warm anecdotes to illuminate complex ideas that culminate in a proposal for a biliterate reading brain. Provocative and intriguing, Reader, Come Home is a roadmap that provides a cautionary but hopeful perspective on the impact of technology on our brains and our most essential intellectual capacities―and what this could mean for our future.

Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World

Harper Paperbacks

The Literary Agenda is a series of short polemical monographs about the importance of literature and of reading in the wider world and about the state of literary education inside schools and universities. The category of "the literary" has always been contentious. What is clear, however, is how increasingly it is dismissed or is unrecognised as a way of thinking or an arena for thought. It is sceptically challenged from within, for example, by the sometimes rival claims of cultural history, contextualized explanation, or media studies. It is shaken from without by even greater pressures: by economic exigency and the severe social attitudes that can follow from it; by technological change that may leave the traditional forms of serious human communication looking merely antiquated. For just these reasons this is the right time for renewal, to start reinvigorated work into the meaning and value of literary reading. Tales of Literacy for the 21st Century wrestles with critical, timely questions for 21st-century society. How does literacy change the human brain? What does it mean to be a literate or a non-literate person in the present digital culture: for example, what will be lost in the present reading brain, and what will be gained with different mediums than print? What are the consequences of a digital reading brain for the literary mind and for writing itself? Can knowledge about the reading brain and advances in technology offer new forms of literacy and new forms of knowledge to the peoples in remote regions of the world who would never otherwise become literate? By using both research from cognitive neuroscience, psycholinguistics, child development, and education, and considering literary examples from world literature, Maryanne Wolf plots a course that seeks to preserve the deepest forms of reading from the past, while developing the cognitive skills necessary for this century's next generation.

Tales of Literacy for the 21st Century: The Literary Agenda

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Oxford University Press

Reading is a miracle, because the brain was never wired for written language. This eloquent, accessible look at reading explores how it has transformed our brains, our lives, and the world. It took 2,000 years for written language to develop, and it takes 2,000 days for a child's brain to learn to read. During that time, the brain must literally rearrange itself in order to understand written symbols. What happens when a child has difficulty mastering these abilities? Using down-to-earth examples and personal anecdotes, a preeminent researcher and literacy lover embarks on a lively journey through the reading brain. Drawing on her vast knowledge of neurology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and child development, she shows how the brain that read Sumerian cuneiforms on clay tablets is different from the brain that reads images on a computer screen. Just as writing reduced our need for memory, technology is reducing the need for written language-a change sure to have profound consequences for our future. Fascinating and revelatory for anyone interested in the science of the brain, for parents of young children learning to read, and for those who want to know more about dyslexia.

HighBridge Audio

Schnelles Lesen, langsames Lesen: Warum wir das Bücherlesen nicht verlernen dürfen

Penguin Verlag

Ich habe mein Leben in den Dienst der Wörter gestellt – ich möchte heraus? nden, in welchen verborgenen Winkeln des Gehirns sie sich verstecken, ich möchte die verschiedenen Ebenen ihrer Bedeutung und Form erforschen und jungen Menschen von ihren Geheimn- sen erzählen. Auf den folgenden Seiten lade ich Sie ein, sich die ungeheure schöpferische Kraft vor Augen zu führen, die sich hinter dem Lesen von Wörtern verbirgt. Keine Errungenschaft unserer geistigen Entwicklung sollten wir weniger selbstverständlich h- nehmen – vor allem in der heutigen Zeit, in der der Übergang zur digitalen Kultur immer schneller voranschreitet. Nie zuvor hat man die komplexe Schönheit des Lesevorgangs und die Vielfalt der damit verbundenen Leistungen wissenschaftlich so gut durchschaut wie heute und noch nie lief das Lesen so sehr Gefahr, von anderen Kommunikationsformen ersetzt zu werden. Das Leitmotiv dieses Buches soll daher sein, genau zu betrachten, was wir haben, und darüber nachzudenken, was wir bewahren w- len. Wirklich zu begreifen, was beim Lesen geschieht, wäre nach den denkwürdigen Worten Sir Edmund Hueys aus dem ausgehenden 19.

Das lesende Gehirn: Wie der Mensch zum Lesen kam - und was es in unseren Köpfen bewirkt (German Edition)

Europe

Spektrum Akademischer Verlag

Lector, vuelve a casa: Cómo afecta a nuestro cerebro la lectura en pantallas

Deusto

COMO APRENDEMOS A LEER: HISTORIA Y CIENCIA DEL CEREBRO Y LA LECTURA

Reference

Foreign Language Study & Reference

EDB NO FICCION

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