Emerging Trends in The Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Reading Brain: The Canary in the Mind

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The Reading Brain: The Canary in the Mind

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The Reading Brain: The Canary in the
Mind
MARYANNE WOLF

Abstract
The development of the seemingly simple cultural invention of reading alters
the brain of each literate individual, propulses the intellectual development of
the species, and provides human beings with a history of past knowledge as a
foundation for future thought. Understanding how this happened in the species
provides unexpected lessons for how children learn, how teachers teach, and how
the brain learns anything new. Understanding the intrinsic plasticity of the reading
brain circuit provides a cautionary tale for examining the cognitive impact of
different media on how we read and how we think.

Literacy is transformative, for the potential of the individual and for the intellectual expansion of our species. In the process of its acquisition, literacy propels the development of new neuronal networks in the brain—particularly
in evolving forms of connectivity between visual and language regions. The
resulting circuitry creates a scaffolding for connecting perception and language to increasingly complex cognitive and affective processes. The reading
brain circuit is one of the single most important epigenetic-based changes in
the modern human brain and is the basis for the emergence of many of our
most sophisticated intellectual skills.
Within this context, the increasing impediments to fully developed literacy require more focused attention by the scientific community. Some
impediments are as old as writing itself, and some represent the unforeseen
consequences of digital media. Thus the invention and the impediments are
human-made and, in principle, can be redressed by the inventors.
The first impediments stem from the skewed relationship between literacy and privilege—whether in ancient Egyptian courts, medieval monasteries, or in today’s world where 793 million people are nonliterate, most
of whom live in poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and India. Further, at least
57 million children have no school and will never become literate. Access to
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Robert Scott and Marlis Buchmann (General Editors) with Stephen Kosslyn (Consulting Editor).
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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schools, however, is no assurance of literacy. In sub-Saharan Africa, children
attending school for 5 years have a 40% chance of being illiterate. Millions
more around the world are, for all purposes, functionally illiterate due to
inadequate schools and inappropriate instruction. Most of these individuals
will never contribute their full potential to society.
In essence, therefore, a variant of Stanovich’s “Matthew Effect, ” where the
“rich get richer and the poor poorer”, governs the reciprocal relationship
between poverty and literacy today on every continent. In the United States,
arguably the most privileged nation, only one-third of American children
reach a level of reading proficiency necessary for higher levels of academic
achievement linked to economic security. Further, more than half U.S. children who are Latino or African American never reach the most basic level of
literacy. Such figures virtually ensure that the well-documented achievement
gaps will persist and deepen, with consequences for the intellectual growth
and socioeconomic possibilities of the nation and the individual, whether in
rural Alabama or in urban Los Angeles. Buttressing these conclusions, the
Council on Foreign Relations stated: “Large, undereducated swaths of the
population damage the ability of the United States to physically defend itself,
protect its secure information, conduct diplomacy, and grow its economy.”
If all students in low-income countries acquired full literacy skills, 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty, resulting in a 12% drop in world
poverty. These national and global realities require intensive application of
research—some that exists, and some that needs to be developed and will be
described here.
An emerging but much less understood impediment to full literacy concerns the effects of the transition from a print-based to a digital-based culture,
particularly on the young. Reading is a cultural invention and, therefore,
possesses no genetically pre-wired circuit that unfolds with contact with the
environment, as in the case of language or hearing. Consequently, the reading brain is doubly dependent in its formation: first, it requires considerable environmental supports; second, it adapts itself to requirements in that
environment—from the writing system and type of instruction, to the characteristics of the medium. The significance of this adaptational malleability is
that the characteristics or affordances of the digital medium are changing the
reading circuit, particularly in the development and use of the most highly
elaborated processes undergirding full literacy.
In this essay, I use knowledge about the reading brain’s emergence to
address key questions related to these impediments. First, what are the
developmental implications of knowledge about the reading brain circuit
for the youngest readers? Specifically, how does the first circuit move from
the simple decoding of information to sophisticated acts of cognition in
expert readers? Second, what are the ramifications of a plastic reading

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circuit in a digital-based culture? What are the implications of immersion
in digital reading—for children’s development, for the democratization of
knowledge, and for the expansion of literacy in the twenty-first century?
These areas represent critical trends of research with the potential to change
how we read and how we think and to render obsolete the Matthew effect
on literacy.
HOW THE READING BRAIN EMERGED
In all likelihood, our species has possessed the same basic brain for approximately 50,000 years. During this time, we invented many things—from
wheels and physical tools, to cave drawings and flying buttresses in cathedrals, to the particle accelerator and the digital culture. The capacity to
invent illumines one of the protean features of the brain’s design: its ability
to go beyond genetically programmed networks (e.g., vision and language)
to create new circuits for increasingly sophisticated functions. These circuits
involve new connections among older networks and an ingenious design
principle: neuroplasticity.
Reading’s acquisition highlights two ways that neuroplasticity helps
humans acquire new cognitive functions. First, reading necessitates the
creation of novel connections among some of the structures underlying
language, perception, cognition, and emotions. In this sense, literacy rewires
the brain of every reader.
Second, reading’s circuit reshapes the smallest building blocks of that
wiring, the neuron itself and neuronal working groups that carry out all
human activities. Neuroscientists Stanislas Dehaene and Laurent Cohen
use the term neuronal recycling to describe how reading repurposes visual
cortex neurons originally used to recognize faces and objects. They describe
how neuronal working groups in visual and occipital-temporal areas are
“recycled” to recognize letters, letter patterns, morphemes (e.g., roots,
prefixes, suffixes), and familiar words with absolute precision and speeds
approaching automaticity.
Written language, therefore, provides an example of how plasticity can be
applied at both macro and micro levels to functions closely related to the original purposes of neuronal working groups. In the case of literacy, working
groups for recognition of visual features within faces and objects are recycled
for recognizing the smallest features of letters and symbols.
And this changed our species. A reading circuit emerged that enabled not
only rapid symbol recognition but also more elaborated connections among
cognitive, language, and affective networks. Over time, these networks
provided literate humans a platform like few others for the development of
new thought.

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From this view, the study of the reading brain helps us to understand
how the brain learns anything new. It is a twenty-first century cognitive
neuroscience analog to the earlier use of the squid’s long axons to study the
central nervous system.
In sum, the development of this seemingly simple cultural invention alters
the brain of each literate individual (Carreiras et al., 2009), propulses the intellectual development of the species, and provides human beings with a history of past knowledge as a foundation for future growth. Understanding
how this happened in the species provides unexpected lessons for how children learn and how teachers teach.
WHAT THE READING BRAIN HAS TO TEACH
There is nothing that a little bit of science cannot help. Parents and educators
must have a better understanding of what reading changes in a child’s brain … I
am convinced that increased knowledge of these circuits will greatly simplify
the teacher’s task
Stanislas Dehaene (2009)

The first implication of a plastic reading brain is that there is no prototypical
circuit that will emerge in the way that vision or language develops—with a
small environmental nudge. Because written language was invented and not
inherited, there are neither pre-dedicated genes nor universally prescribed
structural regions only activated for reading. Rather, as alluded to, different
reading circuits will form, based on environmental factors like the writing
system, the form of instruction, and of most import currently, the medium.
The upshot is that each new reader has to learn to build his or her own
reading circuit with instruction from the generation before and supported
practice till the circuit becomes automatic.
Therein lies many an abrasive rub. As stated, 57 million children have no
schools, and another 150 million have inadequate schools. This means that
200 million members of the next generation will have no reading circuit, or at
most a skeletally impoverished one—capable of basic decoding but insufficient for more sophisticated intellectual processes. The latter reality describes
the learning trajectory for uncounted numbers of children in the United
States who may have adequate schools but inappropriate instruction for
their individual needs. These children fill the ranks of the droves of reading
failures reported in the United States by national and international indices.
There are both environmental reasons for these failures (e.g., inequality and poverty, dual-language learning issues, poor instruction) and
neurobiological ones like dyslexia. An understanding of the basic principles
underlying the formation of the reading brain circuit contributes to a new

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conceptualization of all of these failures, and a new approach to their intervention. First, the circuit requires that each component part of the circuit be
developed sufficiently so that neuronal repurposing can occur. For example,
pre-reading children require multiple exposures to the letters or symbols of
their writing system, to the sounds or phonemes (smallest units of sound)
in their language, to basic cognitive concepts that form their background
knowledge, and to a repertoire of words that reference their world. These
elements comprise the representations that make up the major components
of the young circuit: that is, the orthographic, phonological, cognitive
(attentional, memory, and conceptual), and semantic processes. Only when
the representations in these individual processes have been sufficiently
developed can the environment’s instruction help the individual child
connect the component parts to form a nascent circuit and learn to read.
Thus the first, and potentially most important, lesson of the young reading
brain is that the circuit parts be fully nurtured and developed before the child
ever tries to learn to read. Whether in Ethiopia, where my work with nonliterate children began, or in rural parts of the United States where it continues,
the reading circuit begins its slow reshaping of the brain long before any
Kindergarten or First Grade teacher begins to teach—through continuous
exposures to words, sounds, letters/symbols, and concepts. A new direction in brain imaging research in pediatric neurology shows how effective the
simple practice of a parent reading daily to the child can be in providing these
exposures and advancing the development of speech and language. Hutton
and his colleagues demonstrate that the quality of a mother’s language interactions while reading to her child is correlated with heightened activation of
the speech, language, and attentional areas in the young child’s frontal and
temporal lobe regions. While still in its early stages, this research buttresses
the work of the pediatrician organization, Reach Out and Read, in which parents are given developmentally appropriate books at every well visit in the
first years. Further, it provides a research basis for the critical importance of
early language development.
The reality is that many parents and even preschool teachers are unaware
of how essential exposure to oral and written language is to children’s later
development, even for young infants who have no expressive language.
New forms of imaging in pediatric neurology reveal that receptive language
areas are already forming in two-month-old infants. The books of childhood,
the rhymes of Mother Goose, and the stories of every culture furnish the
sounds of oral language, the symbols and conventions of written language,
the concepts of the culture, and a vocabulary of words unique to text.
Without such a well-established foundation of language and concepts in the
preschool years, reading’s circuitry will take longer to develop, decoding
will be more difficult to learn, and there will be less opportunity for cognitive

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elaboration if decoding remains laborious. Ongoing research, which is little
addressed in the formation of teachers, indicates that a failure to develop
any of the component building blocks can impede reading acquisition and
will require additional targeted instruction by the educational system.
The second lesson from the circuit’s formation is that learning to decode
fluently is cognitively far more complex than previously understood, with
the consequence that some children never go beyond basic levels of literacy.
A common misconception is that reading is a natural process that unfolds
like language when immersed in reading environments. With the exception
of fictional characters like Kit in To Kill a Mockingbird and real outliers like
Jean Paul Sartre (who taught himself), the typical reading brain requires more
direct support through explicit instruction and ample practice in forming the
connections among the component parts of the circuit. This is not universally
understood.
For over half a century, educators have differed radically over which
methods of instruction are best for learning to read. The crux of the conflict
revolves around whether the young reader should be directly taught by an
instructor, or whether the child should induce the principles of learning to
read by immersion in the materials given. Decades of research demonstrate
that approaches that explicitly emphasize an awareness of the phonemes
of the language and their correspondence to particular letters provide the
best foundation for learning the semi-systematic rules of decoding words
in English. Advocates of inductive or whole-language methods, however,
continue to adhere to the notion that children learn best if they infer and
construct the rules of decoding themselves through exposure to literature
and stories, thus building concepts and vocabulary. Memorably described
by Seidenberg (2017) as “theoretical zombies that cannot be stopped by
conventional weapons such as empirical disconfirmation, leaving them free
to roam the educational landscape,” whole-language methods continue to
dominate practice in many parts of the United States and Australia.
As a researcher, my approach to this question has been straightforward:
what methods have evidence for efficacy, for whom, when, and under what
conditions? The most difficult consequence of the twentieth century instructional debates is that, despite essential emphases on words and stories, the
whole-language or inductive methods are insufficient to meet a large number of children’s needs, a conclusion reached by multiple empirical studies.
It is here that cognitive neuroscience research may make an important contribution to educational practice.
As alluded to, in the reading circuit’s ideal development, each of the
components requires extensive exposures and environmental support
for them to develop before and after reading instruction begins. These
emphases promote the development of (i) visual recognition of letters/letter

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patterns/morphemes, (ii) high-quality representation of phonemes, (iii)
connections between letters and sounds, (iv) growth of semantic and
syntactic knowledge, and (v) the ultimate connections among all systems
in reading text (e.g., stories, narrative). Such a multicomponent developmental conceptualization of the reading brain’s formation dictates a more
multidimensional approach to reading instruction and intervention and a
more nuanced understanding of reader differences over their development.
Specifically, this approach includes phonics-related principles from the
outset, alongside systematically integrated vocabulary and conceptual
development at the word and story (text) level. In essence, therefore, an
approach based on the reading circuit’s formation integrates core emphases
of phonics and whole language methods by providing explicit emphases on
all of the cognitive, perceptual, and linguistic processes and their connections
before, during, and after acquisition.
The broadened foci within this conceptualization are particularly important for addressing various reading impediments in children, because the
multidimensional emphases can be more easily tailored to children’s specific
needs. Indeed, differences in reading profiles in American classrooms
have grown exponentially, with many children having combinations of
dual-language-learning needs, impoverished backgrounds, and/or special
needs like attentional deficits, dyslexia, and autism (Ozernov-Palchik
et al., 2016). As many as 40–50% of the children in some urban schools
require differential instruction, but rarely receive it. Most recently, cognitive
neuroscience-based research by Ozernov-Palchik, Gabrieli, Gaab, and our
group has demonstrated that six core literacy profiles of children can be
predicted as early as Kindergarten: two with average to superior reading
related precursors, one with environmental and/or orthographic-related
issues in letter-sound knowledge, one with more speed of processing issues
indexed by naming speed, one with phoneme-based issues, and one (the
most severe) with multiple deficit areas.
The importance of this direction of research for literacy development
is potentially game-changing. First, more differential prediction lays the
groundwork for far earlier, more targeted intervention. As Gaab states, the
current paradox in dyslexia research is that most diagnoses of dyslexia
occur in second and third grades, despite the fact that earlier intervention
achieves better results. Considerable evidence by our group indicates
that the more intensive and earlier that intervention begins, the better the
effects on reading performance. Second, early prediction can help prevent
the insidious social–emotional sequelae of reading failure. For example,
simpler impediments can sometimes be ameliorated through prompt and
specific instruction. Across all children, early diagnoses help them, their
teachers, and parents to better understand that the child is neither lazy

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nor unintelligent, two of the most common errors made with children with
undiagnosed dyslexia that often contribute to social–emotional difficulties.
Third, more targeted prediction helps educators to avoid the continued use
of inappropriate, already failed forms of intervention by providing far more
individualized instructional emphases aimed at the particular profile as it
changes with development.
An important research direction in early targeted intervention involves
studying the effects of single- and multi-component interventions for
children with dyslexia and early reading impediments. In a series of
NICHD-funded, randomized treatment–control studies, our group designed
different interventions based on various combinations of components of
the reading brain. These studies demonstrated the efficacy of a multidimensional approach for atypical developing children, particularly when the
intervention begins early and intensively. The advantage of these multidimensional approaches is that they encompass a full range of emphases that
can be utilized in instruction in various modes of intensity, according to
different children’s changing needs over development. Similar comparative
research for dual-language readers needs to be conducted, but anecdotal
evidence supports the utility of this approach for young Spanish-speaking
readers who are learning to read in English.
The foundational knowledge about the reading brain that informs this
recent research on intervention should also inform decisions about instructional methods and ongoing assessments for typical readers with their
naturally occurring heterogeneity over time. In this way, many children who
fail to go beyond basic decoding because of past one-size-fits-all methods
will receive more developmentally tailored instruction to help them achieve
the deeper forms of cognition propelled by expert literacy.
The other critical lesson that can be derived from the formation of the reading circuit is that the fluency (or speed of processing) of each component part
and of their connected integration is essential for the reader to connect decoding to deeper thinking processes. This is the cognitive prerequisite for what
reading researcher Jeanne Chall called the move from learning to read to reading to learn. This is also the mentally arduous impediment that many children
in the early grades never conquer. They remain arrested in laborious decoding, through insufficient development and/or fluency in one or many of the
component parts of the circuit. It is the child’s version of an intellectually
stunted life-sentence.
There are as many sources as consequences. The cited national and international statistics reflect what happens when children fail to cross the critical gap between decoding and deeper forms of reading. One of the more
important directions of future research is to figure out how the great majority
of our children can achieve sufficient fluency in the early grades, before the

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“double whammy” of Grade Four is encountered: that is, teachers who were
never instructed to teach reading and who assumed that children would
enter Grade Four as able readers, and the increases in text complexity, in
word and sentence length, in syntactic density, and in conceptual demands.
Only children who are fluent before they end Grade Three and Four will
have the prerequisites to go beyond a skeletal reading circuit and reach the
cognitive platform that is given in the fully elaborated reading brain circuit.
WHAT THE READING BRAIN HAS TO LEARN TO BECOME AN EXPERT
We feel quite truly that our wisdom begins where that of the author leaves
off … But by a singular and moreover providential law … (a law which perhaps
signifies that we are unable to receive the truth from anyone else but must create
it ourselves), that which is the endpoint of their wisdom appears to us as but
the beginning of our own …
Proust, “On Reading” (1906/1971)

Proust could not have written a more fitting literary description of the
cognitive, linguistic, and affective complexity that opens when the reader
learns to read fluently enough to allocate time to comprehension. From other
perspectives, these complex processes underlie what literary critics call close
reading, or slow reading, or what I describe as deep reading. Although neither
exclusive nor linear in nature, deep reading processes involve dynamic
interactions among multiple processes like imagery and the retrieval of
background knowledge; analogical and inferential processes that lead to critical
analysis; affective processes like perspective-taking and empathy; and on
occasion the generative processes leading to insight, the pinnacle of deep
reading and what Proust presciently described as the “ endpoint of their
{author’s} wisdom and the beginning of ours”.
From a developmental perspective, deep reading begins like all aspects of
reading with the development of individual linguistic, cognitive, and affective processes and then the gradual connection of these processes to the basic
reading circuit. The essential requirements in this process are two: first, that
decoding becomes fluent enough to allow the young reader time (in ms)
to think more deeply about what is read; and second, that the developing
reader learns over time (in years) to connect the meaning(s) from the text to
increasingly complex deep reading processes. Thus the temporal dimensions
necessary for deep reading are several. The developing readers must read
fast enough to think not only about what the text provides in content, but
also about what insights this activates in themselves. As Proust determined
long before cognitive neuroscience emerged to study it, the very apex of the

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reading act is the formation of these insights, an attainment that is not “a
given” at any age or in any individual.
Understanding the “neural signature of insight” is a work in progress
in neuroscience and in some of my own work. In a meta-review of varied
imaging studies on insight and creativity, Dietrich and Kanso (2010) wrote:
“An insight is so capricious, such a slippery thing to catch in flagrante, that
it appears almost deliberately designed to defy empirical inquiry. To most
neuroscientists, the prospect of looking for creativity in the brain must
seem like trying to nail jelly to the wall.” At one point in their review of
all the available imaging studies, Dietrich and Kanso expressed the prose
equivalent of hands thrown up in the air: “it might be stated that creativity
is everywhere!” (p. 838).
The perspective of philosopher Charles Taylor provides a wholly different
view of the generative dimension at the heart of language, both oral and
written, that may prove useful to the study of insight. Based on the work
of nineteenth century German scholar Wilhelm von Humboldt, Taylor
emphasizes the generative dimension within language that compels human
beings to strive towards more refined and precise articulations of their
thoughts. Humboldt wrote that within language there is a continuous
“feeling that there is something which the language does not directly
contain, but which the mind/soul, spurred on by language, must supply;
and the drive, in turn, to couple everything felt by the soul with a sound.”
(quoted in Taylor, 2016). Taylor uses Humboldt’s conceptualization to
assert that “possessing a language is to be continuously involved in trying
to extend its powers of articulation.” The intrinsic drive to articulate a
concept more fully with greater depth is key to Taylor’s argument that
language is a deeply human project, and is akin to linguist Ray Jackendoff’s assertion that language is a set of “peepholes” on thought and
meaning.
I argue that this ineffable drive within language’s core is also key to understanding the deep reading brain, and vice versa. I conceptualize the entirety
of the deep reading processes as part of the intrinsically human drive toward
the pursuit of ever deeper levels of understanding and our efforts to articulate this. Further, like Vygotsky, I believe that the very act of trying to articulate what we understand advances thought.
Finally, based on findings by Dietrich and Kanso, I believe the existing
evidence on insight—that the processes involved in this drive towards meaning and creativity appear “everywhere”— no coincidence. Deep reading
involves the use of multiple complex networks of cognitive, affective, and
linguistic processes in the propulsion to find and generate our best thoughts.
In so doing, deep reading activates both hemispheres, four lobes, and all
five layers of the brain: it might be stated that deep reading “is everywhere”.

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Thus, within this biological and philosophical context, the expert deep
reading brain is both the consummation and the reflection of the brain’s
design principles that permit phenomena like new circuits to emerge. We
are programmed to go beyond ourselves through our brain’s basic design,
and written language reflects this deeply entrenched drive between what
we are given and what we create ourselves.
WHAT THE READING BRAIN MAY LOSE IN THE DIGITAL CULTURE
No one medium can do everything. Every medium has its costs and weaknesses; every medium develops some cognitive skills at the expense of others. Although the visual capabilities of TV, video games, and the Internet may
develop impressive visual intelligence, the cost seems to be to deep processing:
mindful knowledge acquisition, inductive analysis, critical thinking, imagination and reflection. (Greenfield, 2009, p. 71)

Everything I have written to this point is undergoing radical change,
the correlative of the costs Greenfield describes. With no genetic program,
the plastic reading circuit adapts to the dominant medium. In an earlier
book, I cautioned that the affordances of digital reading could change the
way we read and potentially how we think because of different cognitive
demands on attention, memory, and the allocation of time to analytical and
reflective processes. Our culture has now almost completed its transition
from a literacy-based to a digitally based culture with concomitant changes
to attention, memory, and the way many of us now process what we
read. As reading researchers describe, skimming is the norm, with readers
skimming from the top line in an F or Z pattern to the last line, with
sporadic word-spotting in between. Other scholars describe these patterns
as characterizing a new “hyper-reader”, whose attention is constantly
distracted, with negative effects on sequencing details and, more ominously,
comprehension.
These issues are compounded because how we read and comprehend has
reciprocal effects on how we process the glut of information and consolidate
knowledge derived from it. Thus we enter what I refer to as the “digital
reading chain,” which has its beginnings in our evolutionary, reflex-based
need to attend to novel stimuli. A reflex that once protected us from predators now confuses attention, rather than focuses it. We continuously attend
to a bombardment of novel stimuli and distractions in the digital environment, which affects how much we read, how we read, the characteristics
of what we read, and finally, what is written. We are all changed along this
chain.

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We need only examine our own attentional span, multitasking, memory,
and present immersive reading experience to recognize the changes in
the cognitive patience we expend toward what we read. These changes
reflect the amount of time we may no longer allocate to inference,
critical analysis, and insight. The reading brain circuit requires time
in several dimensions: time for the initial formation of deep reading
operations measured in years of gradual elaboration and development,
and time in milliseconds in what the expert reader allocates to the
multiple components that contribute to deep reading. From a physiological perspective, for those who have become some version of the
“hyper-reader”, the neuronal pathways for their reading circuits have
more than likely come to match the associated characteristics of the
digital medium: fast, multitask-oriented, and less suited for reflective
functions. Current research about how children today are affected by
screens shows how thin the semipermeable membrane is between the
medium and children’s often distracted reading with downstream effects on
comprehension.
The cognitive differences between our culture’s two modes of reading
(print and screen), however seemingly subtle to the reader, require far more
in-depth research. Increasing studies demonstrate substantive changes in
the attention span and working memory of adults today, when compared to
a decade ago. Given the significant role of attention and memory within the
reading circuit, we need to understand how we are allocating time to each
of the deep reading processes and what may atrophy if we neglect them.
Specifically, given the increased reliance on external platforms of knowledge,
will digital readers change in their consolidation of new information into
memory, which is their repository of background knowledge? If so, will
less developed internal platforms of knowledge alter the development and
deployment of analogical processes used to connect past knowledge with
new information? Will the use of inferential skills for understanding new
information change with more superficial, skimming reading modes? Given
that typical young adults are distracted on average 27 times an hour, what
are the effects of multitasking and distraction on focused attention and
critical analyses?
The very plasticity of the reading brain gives reason for alarm and hope
(e.g., Poldrack on multi-tasking in digital natives; and Mangen (Mangen,
Walgermo, & Bronnick, 2013) on differential effects of mediums on sequencing information and comprehension). Given the present often contradicting
studies, a more systematic understanding of the effects of different media
is critical if we are ensure that future generations are not characterized by a
short-circuited reading brain, over-dependent on external knowledge access,

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with underdeveloped deep reading processes, formed till now with slower
print mediums.
HOW THE DIGITAL READING BRAIN CAN ADVANCE LITERACY
Regardless of perspective, if humans are to preserve what is arguably the
apex of cognition in the present reading circuit at the same time that the
species acquires essential digital-based skills, we must use the full sum of
science and technology to examine our goals and their implications with singular vigilance. Years ago, Ong wrote that the most difficult challenge and
opportunity a society can face occurs when it is “steeped in two mediums”.
The careful development of what I have described elsewhere as a biliterate
brain represents one example of the thoughtful use of two media.
Other critical research directions require the joint attention of science and
society. For example, our research collaborative (CuriousLearning.com;
Wolf, 2007; Wolf & Gottwald, 2016) is investigating whether digital devices
can increase literacy in nonliterate populations with either no schools or
teachers, or inadequate schools (e.g., teacher/student ratio of 1:60–100).
A transformative advantage of digital culture is the potential to provide
broader access to knowledge and communication across cultures: that is, the
democratization of knowledge.
In our initiative, we use research from cognitive neurosciences, child
development, and education to develop and/or curate software content
based—like our dyslexia interventions—on reverse engineering the reading
circuit (see RAVE-O description in Lovett et al., in press). An evolving “app
map” based on this developmental knowledge is used to curate existing
apps and to help develop new apps. An open-source platform has the
capacity to assess various aspects of usage and to add ongoing forms of
assessment to evaluate efficacy and engagement. Ongoing deployments
are in Ethiopia, South Africa, Uganda, India, and Peru. First evaluations in
Ethiopia demonstrated significant gains in vocabulary in English, in letter
knowledge, and in precursors of literacy. In Uganda, children in urban
preschools are successfully using the digital devices to acquire similar
precursors. In newer deployments with indigenous populations in Australia
and with children with limited access to preschools in rural Alabama and
Georgia, we seek to understand whether these devices can provide multiple
exposures to the varied aspects of language and print, thus developing
component parts of the reading circuit.
The preliminary success of our Ethiopian deployments led to more
extensive initiatives in global literacy through the first X-Prize for Literacy. Participants are investigating new software for promoting literacy in
Tanzania. Such initiatives will propel research, content, and technological

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

advances, as open-source platforms steadily increase world literacy and
decrease world poverty.
Summary
Understanding the emergence of the reading brain circuit underscores how
neuroplasticity renders it vulnerable to atrophy or loss of sophisticated
cognitive and affective processes—from critical analysis and empathy to
reflection. It simultaneously highlights how adaptational malleability in digital culture bestows an extraordinary potential to democratize knowledge in
ways heretofore impossible. Understanding the cognitive impact of different
mediums on the reading circuit represents a critical direction for guiding
optimal learning and teaching. The careful fashioning of the future reading
brain is one of the most important legacies we can leave our children. For,
the ultimate lesson of the reading brain is that it is the canary in the mind.
REFERENCES
Carreiras, M., Seghier, M., Baquero, S., Estevez, A., Lozano, A., Devlin, J. T., & Price,
C. (2009). An anatomical signature for literacy. Nature, 461(7266), 983–986.
Dehaene, S. (2009). Reading in the brain. New York, NY: Penguin.
Dietrich, A., & Kanso, R. (2010). A review of EEG, ERP, and neuroimaging studies of
creativity and insight. Psychological Bulletin, 136(5), 822–848.
Greenfield, P. (2009). Technology and informal education: What is taught, what is
learned. Science, 323, 69–71.
Lovett, M., Fryters, J., Wolf, M., Steinbach, K., Sevcik, R., & Morris, R. (in press). Early
intervention for children at risk for reading disabilities: The impact of grade at
intervention and individual differences on intervention outcomes. Journal of Educational Psychology.
Mangen, A., Walgermo, B. R., & Bronnick, K. (2013). Reading linear texts on paper
versus computer screen: Effects on reading comprehension. International Journal of
Educational Research, 58, 61–68. (See Barzillai, M., Thomson, J., & Mangen, A. (in
press)).
Ozernov-Palchik, O., Norton, E. S., Sideridis, G., Beach, S. D., Wolf, M., Gabrieli,
J. D., & Gaab, N. (2016). Longitudinal stability of pre-reading skill profiles of
kindergarten children: Implications for early screening and theories of reading.
Developmental Science, 1–18.
Seidenberg, M. (2017). Language at the speed of light. New York, NY: Basic Books (See
NAEP reports here).
Taylor, C. (2016). The language animal. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press.
Wolf, M. (2007). Proust and the squid: The story and science of the reading brain. New
York, NY: HarperCollins.
Wolf, M., & Gottwald, S. (2016). Tales of literacy for the 21st century. Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press.

The Reading Brain: The Canary in the Mind

15

MARYANNE WOLF SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Maryanne Wolf is John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public
Service; Director, Center for Reading and Language Research, Eliot-Pearson
Department of Child Study and Human Development, Tufts University; Fellow (2014–2015) and Research Affiliate (2016–2017) at Center for Advanced
Study of Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University. She graduated from
Harvard University, where she began work on the reading brain, literacy,
and dyslexia. Selected awards include Distinguished Professor of the Year
(MPA), Teaching Excellence Award (APA), Norman Geschwind and Samuel
Orton Awards (International Dyslexia Association), Eminent Researcher
Award for Learning Difficulties (Australia), NICHD Shannon Award for
Innovative Research, Fulbright Fellow, and Christopher Columbus Award
for new work on global literacy. Author of 150 publications, including Proust
and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain (2007,13 translations),
Tales of Literacy for the 21st Century (2016, Oxford Press) and upcoming Letters
on the Changing Reading Brain in a Digital Culture.
RELATED ESSAYS
Learning Across the Life Course (Sociology), Jutta Allmendinger and Marcel
Helbig
Intersectionality and the Development of Self and Identity (Psychology),
Margarita Azmitia and Virginia Thomas
Economics of Early Education (Economics), W. Steven Barnett
Returns to Education in Different Labor Market Contexts (Sociology), Klaus
Schöemann and Rolf Becker
The Impact of Bilingualism on Cognition (Psychology), Ellen Bialystok
Theory of Mind and Behavior (Psychology), Amanda C. Brandone
Culture and Cognition (Sociology), Karen A. Cerulo
Adaptation for Culture (Anthropology), Jill M. Church
Enduring Effects of Education (Sociology), Matthew Curry and Jennie E.
Brand
Four Psychological Perspectives on Creativity (Psychology), Rodica Ioana
Damian and Dean Keith Simonton
The Organization of Schools and Classrooms (Sociology), David Diehl and
Daniel A. McFarland
Social Class and Parental Investment in Children (Sociology), Anne H.
Gauthier
Evolutionary Approaches to Understanding Children’s Academic Achievement (Psychology), David C. Geary and Daniel B. Berch
Family Relationships and Development (Psychology), Joan E. Grusec

16

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

An Evolutionary Perspective on Developmental Plasticity (Psychology),
Sarah Hartman and Jay Belsky
Social Inequality across the Life Course: Societal Unfolding and Individual
Agency (Psychology), Jutta Heckhausen
The Neurobiology and Physiology of Emotions: A Developmental Perspective (Psychology), Sarah S. Kahle and Paul D. Hastings
Cultural Neuroscience: Connecting Culture, Brain, and Genes (Psychology),
Shinobu Kitayama and Sarah Huff
Childhood (Anthropology), Karen L. Kramer
Concepts and Semantic Memory (Psychology), Barbara C. Malt
Neural and Cognitive Plasticity (Psychology), Eduardo Mercado III
The Role of School-Related Peers and Social Networks in Human Development (Political Science), Chandra Muller
A Bio-Social-Cultural Approach to Early Cognitive Development: Entering
the Community of Minds (Psychology), Katherine Nelson
Schooling, Learning, and the Life Course (Education), Aaron M. Pallas
Embodied Knowledge (Psychology), Diane Pecher and René Zeelenberg
Curriculum as a Site of Political and Cultural Conflict (Sociology), Fabio
Rojas
Education in an Open Informational World (Education), Marlene Scardamalia
and Carl Bereiter
Becoming Adult: Meanings of Markers to Adulthood (Sociology), Richard A.
Settersten, Jr. et al.
Institutional Contexts for Socioeconomic Effects on Schooling Outcomes
(Sociology), Herman G. van de Werfhorst
Theory of Mind (Psychology), Henry Wellman



The Reading Brain: The Canary in the
Mind
MARYANNE WOLF

Abstract
The development of the seemingly simple cultural invention of reading alters
the brain of each literate individual, propulses the intellectual development of
the species, and provides human beings with a history of past knowledge as a
foundation for future thought. Understanding how this happened in the species
provides unexpected lessons for how children learn, how teachers teach, and how
the brain learns anything new. Understanding the intrinsic plasticity of the reading
brain circuit provides a cautionary tale for examining the cognitive impact of
different media on how we read and how we think.

Literacy is transformative, for the potential of the individual and for the intellectual expansion of our species. In the process of its acquisition, literacy propels the development of new neuronal networks in the brain—particularly
in evolving forms of connectivity between visual and language regions. The
resulting circuitry creates a scaffolding for connecting perception and language to increasingly complex cognitive and affective processes. The reading
brain circuit is one of the single most important epigenetic-based changes in
the modern human brain and is the basis for the emergence of many of our
most sophisticated intellectual skills.
Within this context, the increasing impediments to fully developed literacy require more focused attention by the scientific community. Some
impediments are as old as writing itself, and some represent the unforeseen
consequences of digital media. Thus the invention and the impediments are
human-made and, in principle, can be redressed by the inventors.
The first impediments stem from the skewed relationship between literacy and privilege—whether in ancient Egyptian courts, medieval monasteries, or in today’s world where 793 million people are nonliterate, most
of whom live in poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and India. Further, at least
57 million children have no school and will never become literate. Access to
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Robert Scott and Marlis Buchmann (General Editors) with Stephen Kosslyn (Consulting Editor).
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

1

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

schools, however, is no assurance of literacy. In sub-Saharan Africa, children
attending school for 5 years have a 40% chance of being illiterate. Millions
more around the world are, for all purposes, functionally illiterate due to
inadequate schools and inappropriate instruction. Most of these individuals
will never contribute their full potential to society.
In essence, therefore, a variant of Stanovich’s “Matthew Effect, ” where the
“rich get richer and the poor poorer”, governs the reciprocal relationship
between poverty and literacy today on every continent. In the United States,
arguably the most privileged nation, only one-third of American children
reach a level of reading proficiency necessary for higher levels of academic
achievement linked to economic security. Further, more than half U.S. children who are Latino or African American never reach the most basic level of
literacy. Such figures virtually ensure that the well-documented achievement
gaps will persist and deepen, with consequences for the intellectual growth
and socioeconomic possibilities of the nation and the individual, whether in
rural Alabama or in urban Los Angeles. Buttressing these conclusions, the
Council on Foreign Relations stated: “Large, undereducated swaths of the
population damage the ability of the United States to physically defend itself,
protect its secure information, conduct diplomacy, and grow its economy.”
If all students in low-income countries acquired full literacy skills, 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty, resulting in a 12% drop in world
poverty. These national and global realities require intensive application of
research—some that exists, and some that needs to be developed and will be
described here.
An emerging but much less understood impediment to full literacy concerns the effects of the transition from a print-based to a digital-based culture,
particularly on the young. Reading is a cultural invention and, therefore,
possesses no genetically pre-wired circuit that unfolds with contact with the
environment, as in the case of language or hearing. Consequently, the reading brain is doubly dependent in its formation: first, it requires considerable environmental supports; second, it adapts itself to requirements in that
environment—from the writing system and type of instruction, to the characteristics of the medium. The significance of this adaptational malleability is
that the characteristics or affordances of the digital medium are changing the
reading circuit, particularly in the development and use of the most highly
elaborated processes undergirding full literacy.
In this essay, I use knowledge about the reading brain’s emergence to
address key questions related to these impediments. First, what are the
developmental implications of knowledge about the reading brain circuit
for the youngest readers? Specifically, how does the first circuit move from
the simple decoding of information to sophisticated acts of cognition in
expert readers? Second, what are the ramifications of a plastic reading

The Reading Brain: The Canary in the Mind

3

circuit in a digital-based culture? What are the implications of immersion
in digital reading—for children’s development, for the democratization of
knowledge, and for the expansion of literacy in the twenty-first century?
These areas represent critical trends of research with the potential to change
how we read and how we think and to render obsolete the Matthew effect
on literacy.
HOW THE READING BRAIN EMERGED
In all likelihood, our species has possessed the same basic brain for approximately 50,000 years. During this time, we invented many things—from
wheels and physical tools, to cave drawings and flying buttresses in cathedrals, to the particle accelerator and the digital culture. The capacity to
invent illumines one of the protean features of the brain’s design: its ability
to go beyond genetically programmed networks (e.g., vision and language)
to create new circuits for increasingly sophisticated functions. These circuits
involve new connections among older networks and an ingenious design
principle: neuroplasticity.
Reading’s acquisition highlights two ways that neuroplasticity helps
humans acquire new cognitive functions. First, reading necessitates the
creation of novel connections among some of the structures underlying
language, perception, cognition, and emotions. In this sense, literacy rewires
the brain of every reader.
Second, reading’s circuit reshapes the smallest building blocks of that
wiring, the neuron itself and neuronal working groups that carry out all
human activities. Neuroscientists Stanislas Dehaene and Laurent Cohen
use the term neuronal recycling to describe how reading repurposes visual
cortex neurons originally used to recognize faces and objects. They describe
how neuronal working groups in visual and occipital-temporal areas are
“recycled” to recognize letters, letter patterns, morphemes (e.g., roots,
prefixes, suffixes), and familiar words with absolute precision and speeds
approaching automaticity.
Written language, therefore, provides an example of how plasticity can be
applied at both macro and micro levels to functions closely related to the original purposes of neuronal working groups. In the case of literacy, working
groups for recognition of visual features within faces and objects are recycled
for recognizing the smallest features of letters and symbols.
And this changed our species. A reading circuit emerged that enabled not
only rapid symbol recognition but also more elaborated connections among
cognitive, language, and affective networks. Over time, these networks
provided literate humans a platform like few others for the development of
new thought.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

From this view, the study of the reading brain helps us to understand
how the brain learns anything new. It is a twenty-first century cognitive
neuroscience analog to the earlier use of the squid’s long axons to study the
central nervous system.
In sum, the development of this seemingly simple cultural invention alters
the brain of each literate individual (Carreiras et al., 2009), propulses the intellectual development of the species, and provides human beings with a history of past knowledge as a foundation for future growth. Understanding
how this happened in the species provides unexpected lessons for how children learn and how teachers teach.
WHAT THE READING BRAIN HAS TO TEACH
There is nothing that a little bit of science cannot help. Parents and educators
must have a better understanding of what reading changes in a child’s brain … I
am convinced that increased knowledge of these circuits will greatly simplify
the teacher’s task
Stanislas Dehaene (2009)

The first implication of a plastic reading brain is that there is no prototypical
circuit that will emerge in the way that vision or language develops—with a
small environmental nudge. Because written language was invented and not
inherited, there are neither pre-dedicated genes nor universally prescribed
structural regions only activated for reading. Rather, as alluded to, different
reading circuits will form, based on environmental factors like the writing
system, the form of instruction, and of most import currently, the medium.
The upshot is that each new reader has to learn to build his or her own
reading circuit with instruction from the generation before and supported
practice till the circuit becomes automatic.
Therein lies many an abrasive rub. As stated, 57 million children have no
schools, and another 150 million have inadequate schools. This means that
200 million members of the next generation will have no reading circuit, or at
most a skeletally impoverished one—capable of basic decoding but insufficient for more sophisticated intellectual processes. The latter reality describes
the learning trajectory for uncounted numbers of children in the United
States who may have adequate schools but inappropriate instruction for
their individual needs. These children fill the ranks of the droves of reading
failures reported in the United States by national and international indices.
There are both environmental reasons for these failures (e.g., inequality and poverty, dual-language learning issues, poor instruction) and
neurobiological ones like dyslexia. An understanding of the basic principles
underlying the formation of the reading brain circuit contributes to a new

The Reading Brain: The Canary in the Mind

5

conceptualization of all of these failures, and a new approach to their intervention. First, the circuit requires that each component part of the circuit be
developed sufficiently so that neuronal repurposing can occur. For example,
pre-reading children require multiple exposures to the letters or symbols of
their writing system, to the sounds or phonemes (smallest units of sound)
in their language, to basic cognitive concepts that form their background
knowledge, and to a repertoire of words that reference their world. These
elements comprise the representations that make up the major components
of the young circuit: that is, the orthographic, phonological, cognitive
(attentional, memory, and conceptual), and semantic processes. Only when
the representations in these individual processes have been sufficiently
developed can the environment’s instruction help the individual child
connect the component parts to form a nascent circuit and learn to read.
Thus the first, and potentially most important, lesson of the young reading
brain is that the circuit parts be fully nurtured and developed before the child
ever tries to learn to read. Whether in Ethiopia, where my work with nonliterate children began, or in rural parts of the United States where it continues,
the reading circuit begins its slow reshaping of the brain long before any
Kindergarten or First Grade teacher begins to teach—through continuous
exposures to words, sounds, letters/symbols, and concepts. A new direction in brain imaging research in pediatric neurology shows how effective the
simple practice of a parent reading daily to the child can be in providing these
exposures and advancing the development of speech and language. Hutton
and his colleagues demonstrate that the quality of a mother’s language interactions while reading to her child is correlated with heightened activation of
the speech, language, and attentional areas in the young child’s frontal and
temporal lobe regions. While still in its early stages, this research buttresses
the work of the pediatrician organization, Reach Out and Read, in which parents are given developmentally appropriate books at every well visit in the
first years. Further, it provides a research basis for the critical importance of
early language development.
The reality is that many parents and even preschool teachers are unaware
of how essential exposure to oral and written language is to children’s later
development, even for young infants who have no expressive language.
New forms of imaging in pediatric neurology reveal that receptive language
areas are already forming in two-month-old infants. The books of childhood,
the rhymes of Mother Goose, and the stories of every culture furnish the
sounds of oral language, the symbols and conventions of written language,
the concepts of the culture, and a vocabulary of words unique to text.
Without such a well-established foundation of language and concepts in the
preschool years, reading’s circuitry will take longer to develop, decoding
will be more difficult to learn, and there will be less opportunity for cognitive

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

elaboration if decoding remains laborious. Ongoing research, which is little
addressed in the formation of teachers, indicates that a failure to develop
any of the component building blocks can impede reading acquisition and
will require additional targeted instruction by the educational system.
The second lesson from the circuit’s formation is that learning to decode
fluently is cognitively far more complex than previously understood, with
the consequence that some children never go beyond basic levels of literacy.
A common misconception is that reading is a natural process that unfolds
like language when immersed in reading environments. With the exception
of fictional characters like Kit in To Kill a Mockingbird and real outliers like
Jean Paul Sartre (who taught himself), the typical reading brain requires more
direct support through explicit instruction and ample practice in forming the
connections among the component parts of the circuit. This is not universally
understood.
For over half a century, educators have differed radically over which
methods of instruction are best for learning to read. The crux of the conflict
revolves around whether the young reader should be directly taught by an
instructor, or whether the child should induce the principles of learning to
read by immersion in the materials given. Decades of research demonstrate
that approaches that explicitly emphasize an awareness of the phonemes
of the language and their correspondence to particular letters provide the
best foundation for learning the semi-systematic rules of decoding words
in English. Advocates of inductive or whole-language methods, however,
continue to adhere to the notion that children learn best if they infer and
construct the rules of decoding themselves through exposure to literature
and stories, thus building concepts and vocabulary. Memorably described
by Seidenberg (2017) as “theoretical zombies that cannot be stopped by
conventional weapons such as empirical disconfirmation, leaving them free
to roam the educational landscape,” whole-language methods continue to
dominate practice in many parts of the United States and Australia.
As a researcher, my approach to this question has been straightforward:
what methods have evidence for efficacy, for whom, when, and under what
conditions? The most difficult consequence of the twentieth century instructional debates is that, despite essential emphases on words and stories, the
whole-language or inductive methods are insufficient to meet a large number of children’s needs, a conclusion reached by multiple empirical studies.
It is here that cognitive neuroscience research may make an important contribution to educational practice.
As alluded to, in the reading circuit’s ideal development, each of the
components requires extensive exposures and environmental support
for them to develop before and after reading instruction begins. These
emphases promote the development of (i) visual recognition of letters/letter

The Reading Brain: The Canary in the Mind

7

patterns/morphemes, (ii) high-quality representation of phonemes, (iii)
connections between letters and sounds, (iv) growth of semantic and
syntactic knowledge, and (v) the ultimate connections among all systems
in reading text (e.g., stories, narrative). Such a multicomponent developmental conceptualization of the reading brain’s formation dictates a more
multidimensional approach to reading instruction and intervention and a
more nuanced understanding of reader differences over their development.
Specifically, this approach includes phonics-related principles from the
outset, alongside systematically integrated vocabulary and conceptual
development at the word and story (text) level. In essence, therefore, an
approach based on the reading circuit’s formation integrates core emphases
of phonics and whole language methods by providing explicit emphases on
all of the cognitive, perceptual, and linguistic processes and their connections
before, during, and after acquisition.
The broadened foci within this conceptualization are particularly important for addressing various reading impediments in children, because the
multidimensional emphases can be more easily tailored to children’s specific
needs. Indeed, differences in reading profiles in American classrooms
have grown exponentially, with many children having combinations of
dual-language-learning needs, impoverished backgrounds, and/or special
needs like attentional deficits, dyslexia, and autism (Ozernov-Palchik
et al., 2016). As many as 40–50% of the children in some urban schools
require differential instruction, but rarely receive it. Most recently, cognitive
neuroscience-based research by Ozernov-Palchik, Gabrieli, Gaab, and our
group has demonstrated that six core literacy profiles of children can be
predicted as early as Kindergarten: two with average to superior reading
related precursors, one with environmental and/or orthographic-related
issues in letter-sound knowledge, one with more speed of processing issues
indexed by naming speed, one with phoneme-based issues, and one (the
most severe) with multiple deficit areas.
The importance of this direction of research for literacy development
is potentially game-changing. First, more differential prediction lays the
groundwork for far earlier, more targeted intervention. As Gaab states, the
current paradox in dyslexia research is that most diagnoses of dyslexia
occur in second and third grades, despite the fact that earlier intervention
achieves better results. Considerable evidence by our group indicates
that the more intensive and earlier that intervention begins, the better the
effects on reading performance. Second, early prediction can help prevent
the insidious social–emotional sequelae of reading failure. For example,
simpler impediments can sometimes be ameliorated through prompt and
specific instruction. Across all children, early diagnoses help them, their
teachers, and parents to better understand that the child is neither lazy

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

nor unintelligent, two of the most common errors made with children with
undiagnosed dyslexia that often contribute to social–emotional difficulties.
Third, more targeted prediction helps educators to avoid the continued use
of inappropriate, already failed forms of intervention by providing far more
individualized instructional emphases aimed at the particular profile as it
changes with development.
An important research direction in early targeted intervention involves
studying the effects of single- and multi-component interventions for
children with dyslexia and early reading impediments. In a series of
NICHD-funded, randomized treatment–control studies, our group designed
different interventions based on various combinations of components of
the reading brain. These studies demonstrated the efficacy of a multidimensional approach for atypical developing children, particularly when the
intervention begins early and intensively. The advantage of these multidimensional approaches is that they encompass a full range of emphases that
can be utilized in instruction in various modes of intensity, according to
different children’s changing needs over development. Similar comparative
research for dual-language readers needs to be conducted, but anecdotal
evidence supports the utility of this approach for young Spanish-speaking
readers who are learning to read in English.
The foundational knowledge about the reading brain that informs this
recent research on intervention should also inform decisions about instructional methods and ongoing assessments for typical readers with their
naturally occurring heterogeneity over time. In this way, many children who
fail to go beyond basic decoding because of past one-size-fits-all methods
will receive more developmentally tailored instruction to help them achieve
the deeper forms of cognition propelled by expert literacy.
The other critical lesson that can be derived from the formation of the reading circuit is that the fluency (or speed of processing) of each component part
and of their connected integration is essential for the reader to connect decoding to deeper thinking processes. This is the cognitive prerequisite for what
reading researcher Jeanne Chall called the move from learning to read to reading to learn. This is also the mentally arduous impediment that many children
in the early grades never conquer. They remain arrested in laborious decoding, through insufficient development and/or fluency in one or many of the
component parts of the circuit. It is the child’s version of an intellectually
stunted life-sentence.
There are as many sources as consequences. The cited national and international statistics reflect what happens when children fail to cross the critical gap between decoding and deeper forms of reading. One of the more
important directions of future research is to figure out how the great majority
of our children can achieve sufficient fluency in the early grades, before the

The Reading Brain: The Canary in the Mind

9

“double whammy” of Grade Four is encountered: that is, teachers who were
never instructed to teach reading and who assumed that children would
enter Grade Four as able readers, and the increases in text complexity, in
word and sentence length, in syntactic density, and in conceptual demands.
Only children who are fluent before they end Grade Three and Four will
have the prerequisites to go beyond a skeletal reading circuit and reach the
cognitive platform that is given in the fully elaborated reading brain circuit.
WHAT THE READING BRAIN HAS TO LEARN TO BECOME AN EXPERT
We feel quite truly that our wisdom begins where that of the author leaves
off … But by a singular and moreover providential law … (a law which perhaps
signifies that we are unable to receive the truth from anyone else but must create
it ourselves), that which is the endpoint of their wisdom appears to us as but
the beginning of our own …
Proust, “On Reading” (1906/1971)

Proust could not have written a more fitting literary description of the
cognitive, linguistic, and affective complexity that opens when the reader
learns to read fluently enough to allocate time to comprehension. From other
perspectives, these complex processes underlie what literary critics call close
reading, or slow reading, or what I describe as deep reading. Although neither
exclusive nor linear in nature, deep reading processes involve dynamic
interactions among multiple processes like imagery and the retrieval of
background knowledge; analogical and inferential processes that lead to critical
analysis; affective processes like perspective-taking and empathy; and on
occasion the generative processes leading to insight, the pinnacle of deep
reading and what Proust presciently described as the “ endpoint of their
{author’s} wisdom and the beginning of ours”.
From a developmental perspective, deep reading begins like all aspects of
reading with the development of individual linguistic, cognitive, and affective processes and then the gradual connection of these processes to the basic
reading circuit. The essential requirements in this process are two: first, that
decoding becomes fluent enough to allow the young reader time (in ms)
to think more deeply about what is read; and second, that the developing
reader learns over time (in years) to connect the meaning(s) from the text to
increasingly complex deep reading processes. Thus the temporal dimensions
necessary for deep reading are several. The developing readers must read
fast enough to think not only about what the text provides in content, but
also about what insights this activates in themselves. As Proust determined
long before cognitive neuroscience emerged to study it, the very apex of the

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reading act is the formation of these insights, an attainment that is not “a
given” at any age or in any individual.
Understanding the “neural signature of insight” is a work in progress
in neuroscience and in some of my own work. In a meta-review of varied
imaging studies on insight and creativity, Dietrich and Kanso (2010) wrote:
“An insight is so capricious, such a slippery thing to catch in flagrante, that
it appears almost deliberately designed to defy empirical inquiry. To most
neuroscientists, the prospect of looking for creativity in the brain must
seem like trying to nail jelly to the wall.” At one point in their review of
all the available imaging studies, Dietrich and Kanso expressed the prose
equivalent of hands thrown up in the air: “it might be stated that creativity
is everywhere!” (p. 838).
The perspective of philosopher Charles Taylor provides a wholly different
view of the generative dimension at the heart of language, both oral and
written, that may prove useful to the study of insight. Based on the work
of nineteenth century German scholar Wilhelm von Humboldt, Taylor
emphasizes the generative dimension within language that compels human
beings to strive towards more refined and precise articulations of their
thoughts. Humboldt wrote that within language there is a continuous
“feeling that there is something which the language does not directly
contain, but which the mind/soul, spurred on by language, must supply;
and the drive, in turn, to couple everything felt by the soul with a sound.”
(quoted in Taylor, 2016). Taylor uses Humboldt’s conceptualization to
assert that “possessing a language is to be continuously involved in trying
to extend its powers of articulation.” The intrinsic drive to articulate a
concept more fully with greater depth is key to Taylor’s argument that
language is a deeply human project, and is akin to linguist Ray Jackendoff’s assertion that language is a set of “peepholes” on thought and
meaning.
I argue that this ineffable drive within language’s core is also key to understanding the deep reading brain, and vice versa. I conceptualize the entirety
of the deep reading processes as part of the intrinsically human drive toward
the pursuit of ever deeper levels of understanding and our efforts to articulate this. Further, like Vygotsky, I believe that the very act of trying to articulate what we understand advances thought.
Finally, based on findings by Dietrich and Kanso, I believe the existing
evidence on insight—that the processes involved in this drive towards meaning and creativity appear “everywhere”— no coincidence. Deep reading
involves the use of multiple complex networks of cognitive, affective, and
linguistic processes in the propulsion to find and generate our best thoughts.
In so doing, deep reading activates both hemispheres, four lobes, and all
five layers of the brain: it might be stated that deep reading “is everywhere”.

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11

Thus, within this biological and philosophical context, the expert deep
reading brain is both the consummation and the reflection of the brain’s
design principles that permit phenomena like new circuits to emerge. We
are programmed to go beyond ourselves through our brain’s basic design,
and written language reflects this deeply entrenched drive between what
we are given and what we create ourselves.
WHAT THE READING BRAIN MAY LOSE IN THE DIGITAL CULTURE
No one medium can do everything. Every medium has its costs and weaknesses; every medium develops some cognitive skills at the expense of others. Although the visual capabilities of TV, video games, and the Internet may
develop impressive visual intelligence, the cost seems to be to deep processing:
mindful knowledge acquisition, inductive analysis, critical thinking, imagination and reflection. (Greenfield, 2009, p. 71)

Everything I have written to this point is undergoing radical change,
the correlative of the costs Greenfield describes. With no genetic program,
the plastic reading circuit adapts to the dominant medium. In an earlier
book, I cautioned that the affordances of digital reading could change the
way we read and potentially how we think because of different cognitive
demands on attention, memory, and the allocation of time to analytical and
reflective processes. Our culture has now almost completed its transition
from a literacy-based to a digitally based culture with concomitant changes
to attention, memory, and the way many of us now process what we
read. As reading researchers describe, skimming is the norm, with readers
skimming from the top line in an F or Z pattern to the last line, with
sporadic word-spotting in between. Other scholars describe these patterns
as characterizing a new “hyper-reader”, whose attention is constantly
distracted, with negative effects on sequencing details and, more ominously,
comprehension.
These issues are compounded because how we read and comprehend has
reciprocal effects on how we process the glut of information and consolidate
knowledge derived from it. Thus we enter what I refer to as the “digital
reading chain,” which has its beginnings in our evolutionary, reflex-based
need to attend to novel stimuli. A reflex that once protected us from predators now confuses attention, rather than focuses it. We continuously attend
to a bombardment of novel stimuli and distractions in the digital environment, which affects how much we read, how we read, the characteristics
of what we read, and finally, what is written. We are all changed along this
chain.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

We need only examine our own attentional span, multitasking, memory,
and present immersive reading experience to recognize the changes in
the cognitive patience we expend toward what we read. These changes
reflect the amount of time we may no longer allocate to inference,
critical analysis, and insight. The reading brain circuit requires time
in several dimensions: time for the initial formation of deep reading
operations measured in years of gradual elaboration and development,
and time in milliseconds in what the expert reader allocates to the
multiple components that contribute to deep reading. From a physiological perspective, for those who have become some version of the
“hyper-reader”, the neuronal pathways for their reading circuits have
more than likely come to match the associated characteristics of the
digital medium: fast, multitask-oriented, and less suited for reflective
functions. Current research about how children today are affected by
screens shows how thin the semipermeable membrane is between the
medium and children’s often distracted reading with downstream effects on
comprehension.
The cognitive differences between our culture’s two modes of reading
(print and screen), however seemingly subtle to the reader, require far more
in-depth research. Increasing studies demonstrate substantive changes in
the attention span and working memory of adults today, when compared to
a decade ago. Given the significant role of attention and memory within the
reading circuit, we need to understand how we are allocating time to each
of the deep reading processes and what may atrophy if we neglect them.
Specifically, given the increased reliance on external platforms of knowledge,
will digital readers change in their consolidation of new information into
memory, which is their repository of background knowledge? If so, will
less developed internal platforms of knowledge alter the development and
deployment of analogical processes used to connect past knowledge with
new information? Will the use of inferential skills for understanding new
information change with more superficial, skimming reading modes? Given
that typical young adults are distracted on average 27 times an hour, what
are the effects of multitasking and distraction on focused attention and
critical analyses?
The very plasticity of the reading brain gives reason for alarm and hope
(e.g., Poldrack on multi-tasking in digital natives; and Mangen (Mangen,
Walgermo, & Bronnick, 2013) on differential effects of mediums on sequencing information and comprehension). Given the present often contradicting
studies, a more systematic understanding of the effects of different media
is critical if we are ensure that future generations are not characterized by a
short-circuited reading brain, over-dependent on external knowledge access,

The Reading Brain: The Canary in the Mind

13

with underdeveloped deep reading processes, formed till now with slower
print mediums.
HOW THE DIGITAL READING BRAIN CAN ADVANCE LITERACY
Regardless of perspective, if humans are to preserve what is arguably the
apex of cognition in the present reading circuit at the same time that the
species acquires essential digital-based skills, we must use the full sum of
science and technology to examine our goals and their implications with singular vigilance. Years ago, Ong wrote that the most difficult challenge and
opportunity a society can face occurs when it is “steeped in two mediums”.
The careful development of what I have described elsewhere as a biliterate
brain represents one example of the thoughtful use of two media.
Other critical research directions require the joint attention of science and
society. For example, our research collaborative (CuriousLearning.com;
Wolf, 2007; Wolf & Gottwald, 2016) is investigating whether digital devices
can increase literacy in nonliterate populations with either no schools or
teachers, or inadequate schools (e.g., teacher/student ratio of 1:60–100).
A transformative advantage of digital culture is the potential to provide
broader access to knowledge and communication across cultures: that is, the
democratization of knowledge.
In our initiative, we use research from cognitive neurosciences, child
development, and education to develop and/or curate software content
based—like our dyslexia interventions—on reverse engineering the reading
circuit (see RAVE-O description in Lovett et al., in press). An evolving “app
map” based on this developmental knowledge is used to curate existing
apps and to help develop new apps. An open-source platform has the
capacity to assess various aspects of usage and to add ongoing forms of
assessment to evaluate efficacy and engagement. Ongoing deployments
are in Ethiopia, South Africa, Uganda, India, and Peru. First evaluations in
Ethiopia demonstrated significant gains in vocabulary in English, in letter
knowledge, and in precursors of literacy. In Uganda, children in urban
preschools are successfully using the digital devices to acquire similar
precursors. In newer deployments with indigenous populations in Australia
and with children with limited access to preschools in rural Alabama and
Georgia, we seek to understand whether these devices can provide multiple
exposures to the varied aspects of language and print, thus developing
component parts of the reading circuit.
The preliminary success of our Ethiopian deployments led to more
extensive initiatives in global literacy through the first X-Prize for Literacy. Participants are investigating new software for promoting literacy in
Tanzania. Such initiatives will propel research, content, and technological

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

advances, as open-source platforms steadily increase world literacy and
decrease world poverty.
Summary
Understanding the emergence of the reading brain circuit underscores how
neuroplasticity renders it vulnerable to atrophy or loss of sophisticated
cognitive and affective processes—from critical analysis and empathy to
reflection. It simultaneously highlights how adaptational malleability in digital culture bestows an extraordinary potential to democratize knowledge in
ways heretofore impossible. Understanding the cognitive impact of different
mediums on the reading circuit represents a critical direction for guiding
optimal learning and teaching. The careful fashioning of the future reading
brain is one of the most important legacies we can leave our children. For,
the ultimate lesson of the reading brain is that it is the canary in the mind.
REFERENCES
Carreiras, M., Seghier, M., Baquero, S., Estevez, A., Lozano, A., Devlin, J. T., & Price,
C. (2009). An anatomical signature for literacy. Nature, 461(7266), 983–986.
Dehaene, S. (2009). Reading in the brain. New York, NY: Penguin.
Dietrich, A., & Kanso, R. (2010). A review of EEG, ERP, and neuroimaging studies of
creativity and insight. Psychological Bulletin, 136(5), 822–848.
Greenfield, P. (2009). Technology and informal education: What is taught, what is
learned. Science, 323, 69–71.
Lovett, M., Fryters, J., Wolf, M., Steinbach, K., Sevcik, R., & Morris, R. (in press). Early
intervention for children at risk for reading disabilities: The impact of grade at
intervention and individual differences on intervention outcomes. Journal of Educational Psychology.
Mangen, A., Walgermo, B. R., & Bronnick, K. (2013). Reading linear texts on paper
versus computer screen: Effects on reading comprehension. International Journal of
Educational Research, 58, 61–68. (See Barzillai, M., Thomson, J., & Mangen, A. (in
press)).
Ozernov-Palchik, O., Norton, E. S., Sideridis, G., Beach, S. D., Wolf, M., Gabrieli,
J. D., & Gaab, N. (2016). Longitudinal stability of pre-reading skill profiles of
kindergarten children: Implications for early screening and theories of reading.
Developmental Science, 1–18.
Seidenberg, M. (2017). Language at the speed of light. New York, NY: Basic Books (See
NAEP reports here).
Taylor, C. (2016). The language animal. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press.
Wolf, M. (2007). Proust and the squid: The story and science of the reading brain. New
York, NY: HarperCollins.
Wolf, M., & Gottwald, S. (2016). Tales of literacy for the 21st century. Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press.

The Reading Brain: The Canary in the Mind

15

MARYANNE WOLF SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Maryanne Wolf is John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public
Service; Director, Center for Reading and Language Research, Eliot-Pearson
Department of Child Study and Human Development, Tufts University; Fellow (2014–2015) and Research Affiliate (2016–2017) at Center for Advanced
Study of Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University. She graduated from
Harvard University, where she began work on the reading brain, literacy,
and dyslexia. Selected awards include Distinguished Professor of the Year
(MPA), Teaching Excellence Award (APA), Norman Geschwind and Samuel
Orton Awards (International Dyslexia Association), Eminent Researcher
Award for Learning Difficulties (Australia), NICHD Shannon Award for
Innovative Research, Fulbright Fellow, and Christopher Columbus Award
for new work on global literacy. Author of 150 publications, including Proust
and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain (2007,13 translations),
Tales of Literacy for the 21st Century (2016, Oxford Press) and upcoming Letters
on the Changing Reading Brain in a Digital Culture.
RELATED ESSAYS
Learning Across the Life Course (Sociology), Jutta Allmendinger and Marcel
Helbig
Intersectionality and the Development of Self and Identity (Psychology),
Margarita Azmitia and Virginia Thomas
Economics of Early Education (Economics), W. Steven Barnett
Returns to Education in Different Labor Market Contexts (Sociology), Klaus
Schöemann and Rolf Becker
The Impact of Bilingualism on Cognition (Psychology), Ellen Bialystok
Theory of Mind and Behavior (Psychology), Amanda C. Brandone
Culture and Cognition (Sociology), Karen A. Cerulo
Adaptation for Culture (Anthropology), Jill M. Church
Enduring Effects of Education (Sociology), Matthew Curry and Jennie E.
Brand
Four Psychological Perspectives on Creativity (Psychology), Rodica Ioana
Damian and Dean Keith Simonton
The Organization of Schools and Classrooms (Sociology), David Diehl and
Daniel A. McFarland
Social Class and Parental Investment in Children (Sociology), Anne H.
Gauthier
Evolutionary Approaches to Understanding Children’s Academic Achievement (Psychology), David C. Geary and Daniel B. Berch
Family Relationships and Development (Psychology), Joan E. Grusec

16

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

An Evolutionary Perspective on Developmental Plasticity (Psychology),
Sarah Hartman and Jay Belsky
Social Inequality across the Life Course: Societal Unfolding and Individual
Agency (Psychology), Jutta Heckhausen
The Neurobiology and Physiology of Emotions: A Developmental Perspective (Psychology), Sarah S. Kahle and Paul D. Hastings
Cultural Neuroscience: Connecting Culture, Brain, and Genes (Psychology),
Shinobu Kitayama and Sarah Huff
Childhood (Anthropology), Karen L. Kramer
Concepts and Semantic Memory (Psychology), Barbara C. Malt
Neural and Cognitive Plasticity (Psychology), Eduardo Mercado III
The Role of School-Related Peers and Social Networks in Human Development (Political Science), Chandra Muller
A Bio-Social-Cultural Approach to Early Cognitive Development: Entering
the Community of Minds (Psychology), Katherine Nelson
Schooling, Learning, and the Life Course (Education), Aaron M. Pallas
Embodied Knowledge (Psychology), Diane Pecher and René Zeelenberg
Curriculum as a Site of Political and Cultural Conflict (Sociology), Fabio
Rojas
Education in an Open Informational World (Education), Marlene Scardamalia
and Carl Bereiter
Becoming Adult: Meanings of Markers to Adulthood (Sociology), Richard A.
Settersten, Jr. et al.
Institutional Contexts for Socioeconomic Effects on Schooling Outcomes
(Sociology), Herman G. van de Werfhorst
Theory of Mind (Psychology), Henry Wellman