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

In a sentence: Reading changes our mind and in doing so changes our reading in a compounding feedback loop that has literally rewired the human mind. Who should read it: Everyone, it's super interesting and if you're an avid reader who knows that reading is better than not reading this will give you a nice pat on the back and a great history of reading and our understanding of how the mind does what it does. If you love being pretentious this is a good book too, the author is full of it haha. Did you know Socrates was avidly against literacy and it's harm to the mind? I knew he was an annoying ass who his neighbors voted to have killed but didn't know about his objections the dangers reading had on wisdome. Proust: Author who captured the profound impact reading has on someone's life Squid: An old neurological metaphor for how neurons work. The book outlines the literal rewiring necessary for humans to learn how to read and how profound and different that is than other built in attributes our minds have. 'this plasticity at the heart of the brain's design forms the basis for much of who we are, and who we might become' Throughout the book I'm struck by wondering how much more we could be doing to rewire our minds intentionally through systems like reading. How much can we do? To change our "open architecture" of the brain. What are we leaving on the table? And how much are we harming the kids who are being left out of this rewiring. Much like everything else we do this feedback loop seems to be part of the Matthew principle and the author talks much about this. The rich get rich the poor get poorer. "we are, it would seem from the start, genetically poised for breakthroughs" "thus the reading brain is part of highly successful two way dynamics. Reading can be learned only because of the brains plastic design, and when reading takes place, that individual brain is forever changed, both physiologically and intellectually." 'we are what we read' The moment we become literate 'we are no longer limited by the confines of our own thinking' 'the richness of this semantic dimension of reading depends on the riches we have already stored, a fact with important and sometimes devastating developmental implications for our children. Children with a rich repertoire of words and their associations will experience any text or any conversation win ways that are substantively different from children who do not have the same stored words and concepts' 'we bring our entire store of meanings to whatever we read - or not' 'If there are no genes specific only to reading, and if our brain has to connect older structures for vision and language to learn this new skill, every child in every generation has a lot of work' 'owing largely to their environments, however, one child will acquire these essentials, the other will not' 'learning to read begins the first time an infant is held and read a story. How often this happens, or fails to happen, in the first years of childhood turns out to be one of the best predictors of later reading' 'every child who learns to read someone else's thoughts and write his or her own repeats this cyclical, germinating relationship between written language and new thought, never before imagined' 'vygotsky observed that the very process of writing one's thoughts leads individuals to refine those thoughts and to discover new ways of thinking.' (does interacting with your personal LLM create a hyper feedback loop of this? Are we on the cusp of something new) 'the association between hearing written language and feeling loved provides the best foundation for this long process, and no cognitive scientist or educational researcher could have designed a better one' Reading is essential to learning to understand someone else's mind, understanding someone else's life, feelings, experiences. Otherwise known as empathy (unless you're only reading the quran) She has a lovely little call to action about how we can diagnose and treat all reading disorders and it's only a matter of access that is holding us back, beautiful and idealistic but if you've ever been in a poor community and homes you know access ain't the problem brother. She says 'a level playing field for all children before they enter kindergarten should not be that difficult to achieve' the understatement of the millennium . Note: Look up Katie Overy, Catherine Moritz, Sasha Yampolsky research into Early Intervention based on rhythm, melody, and rhyme Decoding is necessary to reading but 'one of the biggest errors in reading instruction is the assumption that after Amelia finally decodes a word she knows what she is reading' 'decoding does NOT mean comprehension' Nightmare Fuel: 30 to 40 percent of children in the fourth grade do not become fully fluent readers with adequate comprehension The two greatest aids to fluent comprehension are explicit instruction by a child's teachers in major content areas and the child's own desire to read 'having a richly connected, established vocabulary or semantic network is physically reflected in the brain' 'reading changes our lives an dour lives change our reading' its bidirectional The author spends a great deal of time on dyslexia, it's a mystery basically, it can be wiring, structural, connective, any number of things. 'rapid automatized naming' (RAN) tasks are one of the best predictors of reading performance ' some young children with severe reading disabilities come from such linguistically impoverished backgrounds that vocabulary plays a critical role' not shit, reading isn't genetic, its an environmental problem in almost all but the most severe disabilities. If we know how to treat nearly all cases of learning disabilities it means environment (parents and caretakers) are to blame. Stop protecting bad parents It is the oral word that first illuminates consciousness = Language IS cognition Technology: Their sights are narrowed to what they see and hear quickly and easily, and they have too little reason to think outside our newest, most sophisticated boxes. These students are not illiterate, but they may never become true expert readers What does the future hold? A nation of semi literate people incapable of reasoning beyond the customized LLM text in front of them designed to get them to act a certain way?

In this fascinating work, which might be viewed as an introduction to the cognitive neuroscience of reading, the author gives the reader an excellent overview of the cultural origins of writing/reading, the brain mechanisms that are responsible for the ability to read, and the factors behind the inability to read. Written for a general audience, the book does contain some information of a more technical nature for those readers who might have a general background in neuroscience or cognitive neuroscience. Those readers who need more can find much more detailed information in the references. Everything about this book is interesting, especially to those who may be described as "obsessive" readers that spend a great majority of their life reading and are interested in knowing more about the cognitive mechanisms behind the reading act. There are many interesting discussions and questions that are provoked by the reading of this book. Some of these include: - Once one has achieved what the author has called "expert" reading status, what is the effect of biological age on this status? Does biological aging affect the "rate of processing" of textual information and if so to what degree? Along these same lines, is it more difficult for an older person to learn how to read as compared to young children? - Erotic literature has the propensity for physical arousal, so does its reading evoke even more of the imaginative properties of the reading brain than does other types of literature or less? In addition, it would seem that the limbic system would play a greater role in erotic literature, since more emphasis is being placed on attention and imagination than comprehension. - The technical description that author gives of the "first 500 milliseconds" of reading is fascinating and sheds light on the degree to which the reader must be attentive to the words in the text. But in relation to the need for this attention, while reading a book everyone no doubt has experienced the process of "drifting": you are turning the pages of the book and reading the text but your mind is engaged in other thoughts far removed from the content of the book. After some time and possibly many pages later you catch yourself and then skim the pages you thought you missed. Is the information in the book still assimilated when "drifting" or is completely ignored because the reader is not exercising deliberate concentration? Or is it being partially assimilated and to what degree? And if only partially, can the "skimming" fill in the lost details? If one believes the author's technical description then when "drifting" certain areas of the `parietal lobe', those that are responsible for "disengaging" attention from whatever else we are doing, are not being activated, but the `superior colliculi' that is responsible for eye movements, and the `thalamus' that coordinates information from the brain are. - Is "speed reading" a viable or effective strategy and what exactly is behind it? Does speed reading require other neuronal mechanisms over and above what is discussed in the "first 500 milliseconds"? People who claim to be able to speed read usually also claim that they do so with complete comprehension. Is this true or are they missing some important information from the book? Unfortunately the author does not discuss speed reading in this book. - Does it become easier to assimilate knowledge the more one reads? If one accepts the author's explanations this would be the case, for she holds that less time is required for a "fluent" brain to represent and retrieve the visual, phonological, and semantic information needed for reading. But in this regard is it possible to read "too much", i.e. to read at such an intensity/frequency that a kind of "asymptotic limit" is reached for the ability to retrieve information from `associative' memory as described by the author? - Is the reading process as discussed by the author different to some degree when reading technical literature? Those who read mathematical texts can attest to the large degree of concentration needed as compared for example to reading a novel or a news story. The author asserts that the speed that we read a word is influenced greatly by the quality and quantity of the semantic or background knowledge that is activated by that word. But does this also hold for mathematical equations or other types of symbolic expressions that are essentially outside colloquial grammars? English grammar for example does not include mathematical expressions as part of its syntax or semantics so when such expressions are included in texts, as they are of course in mathematical texts written in English, the reader's "flow" must be interrupted so as to deal with these expressions. This slows down the reading rate considerably, and frequently a lot of backtracking must be done in order to fully comprehend the text. Ironically, visualization plays a strong role in the understanding of mathematical texts, but the authors of these texts frequently eschew the idea of incorporating diagrams or pictures in them. - The author devotes a considerable part of the book to the historical invention of language and reading and compares the skepticism of Socrates towards writing/reading to her own skepticism on the use of online tools for the presentation of information. As far as the explanatory power of verbal narratives are concerned, Socrates certainly had a point if one is only concerned with dialogs of a philosophical or argumentative nature, as of course Socrates was deeply embedded in. But think of how difficult it would be exchange highly sophisticated mathematical information in a verbal dialog. Such an exchange almost necessitates the use of writing, as well as its preservation. And as far as online information and the way it is presented, the jury is still out on its efficacy due to the short timeline that the Internet has been available to everyone. In this regard the author, and all of those who love to read, must be careful not to morph into technoreactionaries when dealing with the new methods of presenting information. These new methods may be even more effective, even more fun, than the activity we have all done for thousands of years, this activity which at some point in the future may be christened as "classical reading."

Maryanne Wolf's Proust and the Squid describes the journey of how the human brain learns to read. Wolf's informative narrative is interspersed with detailed diagrams of the neurosystem and literary quotes from a range of authors such as Sartre and J.M Barrie. Although Wolf's book presents a large amount of research, its engaging narrative and prevalent use of anecdotes keeps the information accessible to most readers; however to fully enjoy the book, it is helpful for readers to have some literary background. In this review, I hope to provide a short guide to the content of the book as well as some recommendations for potential readers. Organization of the Book Wolf is a fan of subdivisions. Overall the book is broken up into three sections: "How the Brain Learned to Read", "How the Brain Learns to Read Over Time", and "When the Brain Can't Learn to Read". Each section is broken up into three chapters, and each chapter is broken up into a number of subsections. In general the subsections in the book help with processing the large amount of information presented, however they can also seem disruptive to the flow of the book. In the section "How the brain learned to Read", Wolf explores how we as a species learned to read and the genesis of writing in the chapters, "Reading Lessons from Proust and the Squid", "How the Brain Adapted Itself to Read: The First Writing Systems", and "The Birth of an Alphabet and Socrates' Protests". The author examines the components of early writing systems from around the world covering Sumerian Cunneiform, Egyptian Heiroglyphics, Maya, Incan quipus, Greek Linear B, and Japanese kanji and kana among others. Wolf describes how the invention of reading repurposes the neural networks we were born with in a great feat of plasticity and stresses that we as a species were never designed to read. After reading this section, it is difficult to not be in complete awe of the feat of reading and how seamlessly and rapidly the brain is able to process words on a page. In addition to impressing a great respect for the brain's cognitive ability, the author also addresses a fear of Socrates that knowledge and true understanding will be lost as we move into different formats (oral to written in Socrates' time, and reading to digital now). Wolf writes, "Socrates' perspective on the pursuit of information in our culture haunts me every day as I watch my two sons use the Internet to finish a homework assignment, and then tell me they `know all about it.'" She goes on to explain, "Socrates' enemy never really was the writing down of words, as Plato realized. Rather, Socrates fought against failures to examine the protean capacities of our language and to use them `with all our intelligence.'" I thought the story of Socrates' opposition to written language was an interesting anecdote to tie the history of reading with the issues that we are currently grappling with an increasingly digital society. In the section "How the Brain Learns to Read Over Time", Wolf explains how children learn how to read. She breaks down this section into the chapters, "The Beginnings of Reading Development, or Not", "The `Natural History' of Reading Development: Connecting the Parts of the Yong Reading Brain", and "The Unending Story of Reading's Development". In this section, she explores the importance of exposure to language and picture books in early childhood development and quotes a study on "word poverty" stating that in some communities children have heard 32 million words less than their peers by age five. These staggering statistics clearly the disparity between some children's learning experiences and provides insight into why our education system may not be the most ideal for teaching children to read. Wolf also shares her own experience learning to read in a small schoolhouse in Eldorado, Illinois. Through her anecdotes and presentation of research, Wolf argues that it is unreasonable to expect all children to be able to read by third grade and difficulties reading are not indicative of low intelligence. In her final section, Wolf explores dyslexia and its possible causes of reading impairment. Her three chapters are, "Dyslexia's Puzzle and the Brain's Design", "Genes, Gifts, and Dyslexia", and "Conclusions: From the Reading Brain to What Comes Next". In these chapters Wolf, explores the idea that dyslexic subject have stronger right brain connections and the genetics of dyslexia. She opens her second chapter of this section with, "Thomas Edison, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Albert Einstein are three of the most famous people said to have had dyslexia." This sentence provides a productive introduction to a discussion about how some deficits can ultimately be beneficial in other aspects. She also reinforces this point with her own experience with her son who also suffers from dyslexia. Overall I think that book provides a good overview of the neurological processes of reading and the development of written language. Wolf also provides an extensive "Notes" section with 228 references for further reading on the breath of subjects that she described. While this book was intended for a general audience, it is by no means an easy read. Wolf's constantly intersperses anecdotes to keep the mood light, however overall the content is extremely dense- which is to be expected as she is covering a few thousand years of human history as well as a neural level explanation of a rigorous learning process. Also her writing style is not the most accessible to all readers. The chapters tend to seem like they go on forever, and there are not very many good stopping points even though there are many subsections in the book. This is not a book that I would pick up at an airport to read over a plane ride nor would I read this book as my first introduction to neuroscience. However I would like to emphasize that it is an enjoyable read, if you have some background on the brain and an interest in the development of language. It also doesn't hurt if you are a little bit of a bookworm either.

Wolf, M., & Stoodley, C. J. (2007). Proust and the squid: The story and science of the reading brain. HarperCollins. Maryanne Wolf is a scholar, teacher, and advocate for children and literacy. She is the Director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Besides this, she grew up in Eldorado, Illinois, near where I grew up, another southern Illinois girl!! Reading is my favorite thing, has been for as long as I remember. I pay attention to what people are reading on planes and have noticed: more people looking at their devices instead of reading; rarely do I see children reading books, instead they're watching shows or playing games on a device, thus, my gravitation toward Wolf's work as I consider the implications. Her goals included: the evolution of the reading brain development, how the young brain learns to read and how reading changes the brain, and what it means when a brain can't learn to read. Reading is something that has to be learned. Specifically, "each brain must learn to make new circuits by connecting older [brain] regions originally designed and genetically programmed for other things." Beginning with naming things, we learn the alphabet and the association of letters, sounds, names, and ultimately meaning; reading is a learned behavior that literally rewires the brain. Research, according to Wolf, clearly shows a connection between the amount of time a child spends listening to people reading and speaking which increases a child's reading level, increases vocabulary, and improves understanding of language. Exposure to stories and books also enhances emotional development, capacity for empathy, and the ability to put yourself in another person's shoes. Word poverty is a term used to describe how by 5 years of age, some children from impoverished-language environments have heard 32 million fewer words spoken to them than the average middle class child. This poverty places these children at a disadvantage from those who have a greater vocabulary. Dyslexia was cited as an example of how learning to read can go wrong for any number of reasons. Wolf said that there is no one form of dyslexia but instead a "continuum of developmental reading disabilities." Exposure to reading, conversation, and books from age 0 to 5 is essential in the way the brain is rewired towards reading learning. I'm concerned about the ubiquitous use of technology because I fundamentally believe that reading is beneficial. Wolf's research added a great deal to my understanding of what's at stake when people don't know how to read. She asserted that reading online is not the same and her next book Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World explores this assertion. I'm eager to dive in!!

Maryanne Wolf has written a deeply rewarding exploration of reading and its impact on the human brain -- from a historical perspective, from a social perspective, from a literary perspective, from a scientific perspective, and finally from the perspective of the parent of a dyslexic son. While neatly transitioning from one topic to the next in a logical sequence, she has also managed to interweave all of these disparate elements throughout the book. With Dr. Wolf's own obvious love affair with the written word and the power of prose, the different perspectives and strands of thought become a metaphor for the brain itself, with its interconnecting, interactive network of billions of neurons. This is a meticulously researched book brimming with detailed scientific information, and yet equally full of rich literary detail, as the history of the reading brain is also the history of the linguistic richness that a few thousand years of literacy has produced. The final chapters deal with dyslexia, and in those chapters I sense a tension between Dr. Wolf's own past and future - just as she sees a tension between the human experience of reading words on paper and the emergence of a digital age. Dr. Wolf has spent a good part of her scientific career attempting to study and categorize dyslexia, breaking it down into a second and third "subtypes" determined by simple tests of a single mental challenge, that of speedy retrieval of words. But the eyes of a parent tell a truth that was hidden to the scientist: as she sits at the dining room table writing "about why Orton was probably wrong" when he wrote of right hemispheric dominance among dyslexic children, her teenage son sits beside her, drawing an exquisitely detailed rendition of the leaning tower of Pisa.... upside down. The dyslexia is not a product of a deficiency in a single skill, but the expression of brain far more exquisitely complex than the drawing it is capable of producing. The next chapter, called "Genes, Gifts, and Dyslexia", shifts from the technical focus on missed connections to an exploration as to "why Orton was right" -- how the creative and artistic talents shared by so many dyslexics may indeed stem from a brain geared to rely more on its right hemispheric connections. The book ends on a note of expectancy, as it is clear that however much we know and the author has laid out for us, we are only beginning the journey to know, understand, and appreciate the wondrous powers of the reading brain. * Reviewer Abigail Marshall is the author of The Everything Parent's Guide To Children With Dyslexia: All You Need To Ensure Your Child's Success (Everything: Parenting and Family)

I had already read Reader Come Home (twice) by Maryanne Wolf and Proust and the Squid, did not disappoint. Excellent book if you are interested in the brain and how we process information. I may read it a second time as well.

A great look at how the brain learns to read with tips for helping learners.

Maryanne Wolf has written a richly informative work, which covered a number of areas that I had very limited knowledge of. She is an academic who has made numerous complex subjects and concepts accessible to the non-specialist, yet has not trivialized the material. She never explains when and how she had the inspiration for a very memorable title, which would nag with the question: What could Marcel Proust and a Squid possibly have in common? Ah, like so much in the book, and in real life, it is the connections that our neuro-pathways make. The author has covered three principal topics. As she explains in the first chapter: "This book consists of three areas of knowledge: the early history of how our species learned to read, from the time of the Sumerians to Socrates; the developmental life cycle of humans as they learn to read in ever more sophisticated ways over time; and the story and science of what happens when the brain can't learn to read." Admittedly, rather late in life, I finally read The Odyssey . The version was a new one by Barry B. Powell. In his introduction, he posits the theory that the Greek alphabet was invented around 800 B.C., in order to record the poetic rhythm of Homer's epic tale. Thus I was particularly attentive to Wolf's account of how writing systems evolved, starting with the "bird tracks," of the Sumerians through the Akkadians (a language I have only recently become aware of - apparently there are a few hundred people in the world still trying to keep the language alive) and on to the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians. Each of these languages contained a pictorial element. It was only when the Greeks invented their language, which was largely and directly related to the phonetics of the language, that a true alphabet was established. In human evolution the ability to read has developed only recently. Wolf makes the point that we are not "hard-wired" to read. For each of us, we must learn - sometimes painfully, and with limited success - to develop those neurological pathways that make sense of the small, repetitive shapes on a piece of paper - or now, increasingly, on a digital screen. I found this section fascinating too. For example, she cites the work of three Chinese neurologists in the 1930's who studied the case of a bi-lingual businessman who had a severe stroke. He had completely lost his ability to read Chinese, but could still read English. It required completely different sections of the brain to read a more pictorial based alphabet as opposed to the limited characters in the alphabet used to write English. Another section that strongly resonated concerned re-reading books at different periods in one's life, deriving different meanings depending on the evolving experiences in one's own life. Wolf specifically mentioned George Eliot's Middlemarch (Penguin Classics) which she had read several times, which was precisely the theme of Rebecca Mead's recently published My Life in Middlemarch . I too have been re-reading a number of works first read 30-40 years ago, finding new meaning, and re-assessing. The last third of the book dealt with those who have difficulties reading, and are often labeled dyslexic, a term that Wolf says has no real meaning. She does cover the number of areas in which individuals may have deficiencies in their ability to read fluently. These deficiencies can be unique, or overlapping. And it seems that the brains of these individuals are simply different, with more equality between the left and right hemispheres. And "dyslexics" seem to be more creative. She names numerous historical individuals who appear to have had that problem, and whose names are definitely remembered today, like Einstein. She also reveals it is a personal issue, since her son has had reading problems. I did have some problems with this book. First and foremost, Wolf repeatedly makes the point that Socrates was opposed to the transition from the oral to written medium for conveying knowledge, and attempts to connect that to the transition from knowledge obtained through books to that obtained from the Internet. But she never really develops this theme; she just raises it repeatedly. I felt particular unease - though I admit doing it myself, in deciding a book of Diane Arbus' photographs was not suitable viewing material for my once-upon-a-time seven year old daughter - to Wolf's theme that access to knowledge should be "guided." That concept is right out of the playbook of many a totalitarian state... or, increasingly, wantabees. Who does the "guiding" and with what criteria was another topic she did not address. I also felt she succumbed to a congenital weakness of academics: "plugging" the work of colleagues for no particular purpose, other than, the "plug." Finally, and it is a particular concern of mine. With all the effort that is expended on learning how to read - to obtain that "eureka" moment that Wolf beautifully described in one case, why do so very few people continue to read serious works once the school assignments are finished? Also, unaddressed. Overall, for Wolf's work, a very informative 4-star rating.

Das ist ein sehr spannendes Buch, leider gibt es nichts vergleichbares in deutsch. Es kam ja antiquarisch aus USA, war aber gut erhalten und ist wirklich lesenswert. Der Titel ist ein schöner Hinweis auf den Inhalt, aber sicher nicht leicht verständlich. Das Buch hält aber, was der Titel verspricht.

I am loving the book. I studied applied linguistics and specialuse in dyslexia. This book is a great follow up to my interests.

Este libro presenta un panorama general sobre los procesos neurológicos que tienen lugar durante el aprendizaje de la lectura. Es bastante ameno, se aprende con él e invita a pensar. Se echa de menos un glosario porque a veces es muy difícil comprender los términos técnicos.

邦訳版が読みづらかったので、原書を買ってみました。引用文以外は、読みやすい文章です。専門用語は、日本語でも意味がわかりませんから、気にせず読んでしまいましょう。引用文は文学的で、素人には少し荷が重いですね。

The title of this book is horrible and doesn’t give readers any insight to the book’s contents. Proust put me to sleep, BUT this is a really interesting read about how writing evolved, how the brain reads and the connection to neurological development, and why some struggle. Unlike Proust or squids, it kept me turning pages.