Book completed

[eve_prime]

Proust and the Squid: The Story and the Science of the Reading Brain, by Maryanne Wolf. Very interesting. The first third is on the development of writing systems (exactly the sort of thing my mom loved to read about). The second third is about learning to read - the author invites us to skim the section on neuroscience, but I did wade through it. The final third is insights from her own career as an expert in dyslexia.

As it turns out, there are two main pathways to dyslexia. One is having a difficult time understanding words as made up of specific sounds that recur in other words. The other is having a time delay between seeing letters (and colors, etc.) and being able to name them. It turns out that at least the time precision part is normally governed by the left side of the brain, whereas dyslexics end up reading with the right side of the brain, possibly because they're already more gifted in using the right side, or else their brain just happens to read that way, strengthening the right side and enhancing its other gifts. With different languages, there are different prevalent patterns in dyslexia - in English, many have the first problem, many have the second, quite a few (maybe it was the majority?) have both, but about 10% have neither.

Comments

[kaishin108]

How fascinating!

[eve_prime]

Yes! I'll have to remember to tell J. about it. There are so many steps involved in learning to read, so there are many things that could go wrong.

[kaishin108]

I am more spatially dyslexic if that even is something. As in it is hard for me to 'sort' things and keep it right. Bad wire connections in my brain, and this was before my fall, yikes! ;-)

[eve_prime]

My tricky thing is left and right. I have to think carefully before saying one or the other, because if I don't, my brain will automatically have me say one or the other arbitrarily.

[kaishin108]

Ahh yes the left and right thing.
I was typing up directions on a job sheet for the techs today while I was looking at google maps on my phone and it was crazy. Like: Go So or Right on ____ then go East or Left on ____
I had to look it over a few times, my goodness!

[eve_prime]

Ha! I'm pretty good at north and south, which is probably natural for someone born on the Oregon Coast where it's always obvious, but I don't always get east/west correct. I prefer the style of giving directions that includes lots of landmarks!

[kaishin108]

I was better at east and west in Calif than here, ha hah.
Our mountains are in view and they are North so that helps.

Landmarks do helps, I agree! :-)

[eve_prime]

I'm generally good at N-S-E-W, but there are some places where I haven't a clue - my grandparents' house, growing up, and the student union building at Oregon State would be among them.

[claidheamhmor]

That's really interesting...

[eve_prime]

I was glad to learn about all that.