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"Understanding the Brain", The Birth of a Learning Science, 2007, page 86
Literacy in the Brain
In contrast to language, there are no brain structures designed by evolution to acquire literacy. Experience does not trigger a set of biologically-inclined processes leading to literacy, as in the case of language.
Instead, experience progressively creates the capacity for literacy in the brain through cumulative neural modifications, expressed by Pinker (1995) as “Children are wired for sound, but print is an optional accessory that must be painstakingly bolted on”.
The crucial role of experience in building neural circuitry capable of supporting literacy suggests that attention needs to be given to differences in the degree to which early home environments provide a foundation of pre-literacy skills.
For example, Hart and Risley (2003) report that the sheer number of words that American children from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds were exposed to by the age of 3 lagged behind that of non-disadvantaged children by 30 million word occurrences.
Such limited exposure could be insufficient to support the development of pre-literacy skills in the brain, thereby chronically impeding later reading skills. These children may well be capable of catching up through later experience, but the reality is that they very often do not (Wolf, 2007).
Therefore, of policy relevance from this work: Initiatives aimed at ensuring that all children have sufficient opportunities to develop pre-literacy skills in early childhood are essential.
Instead, experience progressively creates the capacity for literacy in the brain through cumulative neural modifications, expressed by Pinker (1995) as “Children are wired for sound, but print is an optional accessory that must be painstakingly bolted on”.
The crucial role of experience in building neural circuitry capable of supporting literacy suggests that attention needs to be given to differences in the degree to which early home environments provide a foundation of pre-literacy skills.
For example, Hart and Risley (2003) report that the sheer number of words that American children from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds were exposed to by the age of 3 lagged behind that of non-disadvantaged children by 30 million word occurrences.
Such limited exposure could be insufficient to support the development of pre-literacy skills in the brain, thereby chronically impeding later reading skills. These children may well be capable of catching up through later experience, but the reality is that they very often do not (Wolf, 2007).
Therefore, of policy relevance from this work: Initiatives aimed at ensuring that all children have sufficient opportunities to develop pre-literacy skills in early childhood are essential.
"Understanding the Brain", The Birth of a Learning Science, 2007, page 86
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