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

In Reader, Come Home, Maryanne Wolf writes letters to her readers about her fascinating concerns on what happens in the brain as it adapts to digital mediums and what it could mean for our future. This book is packed with in-depth knowledge that is definitely worth reading, however we know that as teachers, we aren't allotted much time to deepen our own learning outside of what is required of us in real time. Luckily, we as pre-service teachers, it was a requirement for us to read this book, and as luck has it, we are able to share with you, in summary, the top 8 key ideas in Reader, Come Home:

1. Reading is a skill that we learn as our brains develop rather than an innate ability.- Human evolution is a continuum, we are always developing new skills to keep up with the times we are in. Reading wasn't anything different. Maryanne used the analogy of a circus to best explain what happens in each part of our brain assigned to helping us read. The complexity of what it takes for us to read "read" is amazing and too much to get into in this small section, so I'll do my best to sum it up in the easiest (and best) way I can. As we learn to read, the brain develops a new network specifically designed for that task. That’s a product of the brain’s neuroplasticity – its ability to rearrange and reroute existing neuronal networks to create entirely new ones. This kind of cerebral construction works constantly throughout our lives. The brain is always linking up cell clusters; each cluster within these configurations simultaneously works to support the new skill, in our example, reading. Neuroplasticity also means that our ability to read changes over time, which is why our author is concerned about how brains will function in the Digital World.

2. Our deep-reading abilities are being altered by the digital age, and we need them more than ever.-With technology, everything is a quick read here or a quick swipe there; there is no connection in our reading. The worrying thing is: the less we engage in deep reading, the less empathetic we’re likely to become. There’s already evidence pointing that way. A 2011 Stanford University study which looked at empathy in college students. It concluded that empathy had declined by 40 percent among young people over the last two decades and especially over the last ten years.

3. Our attention is ever-more fragmented, which hinders deep reading. Today, we read in short bursts and skip from one topic to the next. Unsurprisingly, that’s not good news for our ability to read – and to think deeply. Maryanne Wolf witnessed the shocking effects of that loss firsthand. She shared in the book how she struggled to keep pace with the amount of digital data she had to produce and consume every day, she found herself spending more and more time dealing with emails which kept her away from her coveted reading life.

4. Children are highly susceptible to fragmented attention spans, which has a serious effect on their brains.- Multitasking is the new normal. There’s a good reason for that: our brains actually enjoy rapidly moving between different tasks. Why? Call it a novelty bias – an inbuilt cognitive preference for anything new and attention-grabbing. The result, according to neuroscientist and author Daniel Levitin, is overstimulation – an inundation of data sources which compete for kids’ attention.

5. Parents who read to their children do more for their development than screens ever could. This cements a positive emotional association in a child’s brain with aspects of reading like attention, memory and language. Listening to a story being read out loud is a great way of establishing that skill. Kids who’ve heard the same tale again and again build up a storehouse of new words and concepts. All that accumulated knowledge comes in handy when children begin reading for themselves around the age of five. Digital devices, by contrast, don’t encourage the same kinds of connections.

6. There is a crisis in reading in the United States, which is why it’s crucial children of all ages receive support. The National Assessment of Educational Progress concluded that 60% of American fourth-graders aren’t fully proficient readers. The worry here isn’t just that children are missing out on the joys of a good book: poor literacy levels have far-reaching effects on society. Maryanne talks about her son Ben, who was an intelligent and creative fourth grader but he had dyslexia which restricted his reading ability and caused him to act out in class. Ben was privileged to have Maryanne as his mother, one who devoted her life to cognitive neuroscience and developmental psycholinguistics on the reading brain, however, the majority of kids like Ben are not. Teachers should be adequately equipped with knowledge about this and other literacy issues, so that we may help in creating better futures for our kids, and ultimately our own.

7. To prepare for the future, we should nurture children’s brains with the best of both worlds. Kids should be encouraged to become fully fluent in both print and digital mediums holistically. Each medium has their own strengths. When it comes to reading, non-digital sources are much more effective at giving students the tools they need to think for themselves. Physical books, the author argues, should be the principal focus during the first years of schooling. She suggests that teachers should use digital media as a training tool to teach kids how to interact actively with technology to express themselves rather than passively ingesting "damaging" material created by others.

8. Protecting our third life as readers preserves our ability to turn knowledge into wisdom. In the Nicomachean Ethics, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle identified the three “lives” of a good society: one devoted to knowledge and productivity, another to entertainment and the third to contemplation. The first life is all about learning and gathering knowledge – searching Google or looking up a word in a dictionary. In the second life, readers relish the things which entertain them like getting tangled up in brains with Ron during the Battle of the Department Mysteries in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix or uncovering new historical discoveries . This sweet spot is where we find an escape from the pressures of our everyday lives. Taken together, these two modes lead to the third: the life of contemplation. This deeply personal realm is where we let the things we've consumed during our reading.– whatever genre they are – guide our thoughts about the world around us. Spending time in this third zone allows us to translate the knowledge and experiences gained in our first and second lives into wisdom; therefore we should be very mindful what we expose ourselves to.