HOW THE BRAIN LEARNS TO READ AUGUST 20, 2013 EDUCATING THE NON-TRADITIONAL STUDENT Amy Lincoln, PhD, CCC-SLP

About myself…  Speech-Language Pathologist  Learning Disability Specialist  PhD in Neuroscience  17 years experience working with children with language and learning disabilities  Epicenter Therapy Services

Agenda for the talk…  Provide an overview of the connection between spoken language and reading  Examine the complexities of the learning-to-read process  Consider the unique struggles of non-traditional, ELL students, who are learning to read

The foundation to reading is built on the child’s language system… 1. Spoken Language

Language is VERY complex for typically developing children in their native language Language development is interrupted for IA (internationally adopted) children Not all “language” is alike Spoken Language

Processing Spoken Language  BRAIN BASICS  Brain uses Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas for language comprehension and expression  Also uses other neural networks in the left hemisphere  Ability to acquire spoken language is encoded in our genes  Diminishes around years of age

Language is complex…  Consider this…  A single human voice can pronounce all the hundreds of vowel and consonant sounds that allow it to speak any of the estimated 6,500 languages that exist today

Learning Phonemes  Units of sounds  Combine to form syllables  Infant’s brain can respond to all (300+)  Only those that are repeated get attention  By age one, neural networks focus on sound in the infant’s environment  # of phonemes in a language may vary from

Words  Vocabulary Development  First words are usually nouns, labels  Action and relationship words come later  Consider this…  By age 6… Expressive vocabulary is ~ words Receptive vocabulary is ~ 20,000+ words

The power of VOCABULARY  One study of early vocabulary demonstrated that toddlers (3-4 yrs.) from various socio-economic groups demonstrated the following average # of vocabulary words:  Welfare child (529 words)  Mid/Low SES (749 words)  Upper SES (1,116 words)  Six years later, early scores were predictive of listening, speaking, syntax, semantics and reading skills at age Hart & Risley, 2003

Vocabulary  “When one realizes that children have to learn about 88,700 written words during their school years and that at least 9,000 of these words need to be learned by the end of grade 3, the huge importance of a child’s development of vocabulary becomes crystal-clear.” Proust and the Squid, Maryanne Wolf, p.123

Language complexity grows exponentially  Phonemes: sounds  Recognize hierarchy of language: nouns, verbs, rules of grammar  Vocabulary  Morphemes: word parts (-s, -ed)  Sentence level  Speaking/Understanding  Explicit and inferred

ESL or ELL  ESL – English as a second language  ELL – English Language Learner  Because most adoptive parents do not speak the child’s birth language, children quickly lose their abilities in that language  Children adopted prior to the age of 2, develop English similar to native speakers  Children adopted at ages 3-4 years lose most expressive use of their first language in 6-12 weeks  Older kids…??

“Language Lurch”  The transition period when the first language skills have disappeared and their new language skills have yet to fully form.  “Remember: Language is a powerful tool used in the regulation of behavior: When this tool is taken away from a child, a host of behaviors can be observed…” Language Development in IA Children, Gindis, 2004

Brain Basics…  Functional MRI studies of adults who were internationally adopted as children confirm that adult adoptees no longer recognize nor understand their first language, even those who were adopted at school age.  However, the same fMRI studies also confirm that internationally adopted adults process their new adopted language using different areas of the brain than those of native-language speakers. Pallier et al., 2003

Language vs. communication  Communicative Language  Language skills needed for social interaction in everyday practical contexts  Basic pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar  “Picnic Lunch” language  Cognitive Language  Is a tool of reasoning, a means of literacy, and a medium for academic learning  “4 th Grade Science Project Language”

Development of Cognitive Language  Children are predisposed to cognitive language mastery through their earlier experiences with the language  This step is what the majority of IA children miss in their early development  “Also, as their first language is rapidly lost and their new first language is still weak is a significant interruption of their language development” Language Development in IA Children, Gindis, 2004

English Language “Mastery” Communicative Language ≠ Cognitive Language

Learning to read is hard! Reading requires good auditory processing, visual processing and language processing (cognitive language) skills 2. The Reading Process

Learning to read  Relatively NEW phenomena  Genes have not incorporated reading into their coded structure  If reading were a natural ability, everyone would be doing it…

How hard is it to learn to read? “Why is it that the hardest thing children are ever asked to do is the first thing they’re asked to do?!” -Merryl Pischa, Reading Specialist  Nearly two-thirds of low-income 4 th graders cannot read at the proficient level  Nearly 40 million adults (in US) are functionally illiterate  No one method or program has surpassed all others

Studies Show…  Novice readers use different cerebral pathways than proficient readers  People with reading difficulties use different brain regions to decode written text than do typical readers  The brains of people with reading problems work harder than those of skilled readers  Even though dyslexia is a brain disorder, it is treatable  Brains of young struggling and dyslexic readers can be rewired to more closely resemble those used by typical readers How the Brain Learns to Read, David Sousa, p. 4-5

The reading process decoding & meaning Language Processing (Cognitive Language) Auditory Processing Visual Processing

Things that can go wrong with reading… Auditory Problems Prevents hearing the phonemes correctly Visual Problems Prevents seeing letters clearly Prevents processing visual information accurately Auditory/Visual Processing Timings are not synchronized Semantics Word meaning is not known Working Memory Memory does not hold sounds or words long enough to attach meaning

Things that can go wrong with reading… Auditory Problems Prevents hearing the phonemes correctly Visual Problems Prevents seeing letters clearly Prevents processing visual information accurately Auditory/Visual Processing Timings are not synchronized Semantics Word meaning is not known Working Memory Memory does not hold sounds or words long enough to attach meaning

Auditory Processing  Awareness that speech is composed of sounds (phonemes)  Recognition that written spellings represent sounds (alphabetic principle)  Understanding that phonemes can be manipulated  Phonemic awareness strong predictor of reading success in later grades

Phonemic awareness…

Vowels Vowel Chart representing where in the mouth vowel sounds are produced… Source: wikimedia.org

Our brains are wired to hear our native language… American-English VowelsAmharic Vowels

Things that can go wrong with reading… Auditory Problems Prevents hearing the phonemes correctly Visual Problems Prevents seeing letters clearly Prevents processing visual information accurately Auditory/Visual Processing Timings are not synchronized Semantics Word meaning is not known Working Memory Memory does not hold sounds or words long enough to attach meaning

Visual Processing Skills, necessary for reading…  Eye-tracking and peripheral vision  Eye teaming and convergence  Eye focusing stamina and accuracy  Visual discrimination  Visual figure ground  Visual processing speed  Part/whole relationships

Visual Processing…  Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Visual Processing  Can you read this?  Can yOu ReaD this?  How about these…  يمكنك أن تقرأ هذا  你能讀  మీరు ఈ చదువుకోవచ్చు  Можете это прочитать

Visual Processing  Visual spatial patterns in reading  Left to Right  Front to Back  Top to bottom  Culturally based  Learned through repeated exposure to books

Visual Processing: Alphabetic Principle  Learning letters IS NOT EASY…  The letters are abstract and unfamiliar to new readers  There are about 44 English phonemes but only 26 letters-each phoneme is not coded with a unique letter  There are over a dozen vowel sounds but only five letters- a,e,i,o,u – to represent them  The reader needs to recognize that how a letter is pronounced depends on the letters that surround it (e.g., pet, Pete, pea)

Alphabetic Principle: Example  There once was a beautiful bear who sat on a seat near to breaking and read by the hearth about how the earth was created. She smiled beautifully, full of ideas for the realm of her winter dreams.

Alphabetic Principle: Example  There once was a beautiful bear who sat on a seat near to breaking and read by the hearth about how the earth was created. She smiled beautifully, full of ideas for the realm of her winter dreams.

Things that can go wrong with reading… Auditory Problems Prevents hearing the phonemes correctly Visual Problems Prevents seeing letters clearly Prevents processing visual information accurately Auditory/Visual Processing Timings are not synchronized Retrieval Speed Having the knowledge PLUS getting to it quickly Takes practice and repetition in controlled practice Semantics Word meaning is not known Working Memory Memory does not hold sounds or words long enough to attach meaning

Strategies  Provide controlled text for practice  Phonetically controlled readers  Keep presenting age-level interests  Provide minimal pair drills  bot/dot  Do receptive and expressive drilling  Which one says “kuh”, What does “K” say  Provide sentences with key words missing, have child provide word

Things that can go wrong with reading… Auditory Problems Prevents hearing the phonemes correctly Visual Problems Prevents seeing letters clearly Prevents processing visual information accurately Auditory/Visual Processing Timings are not synchronized Semantics Word meaning is not known Working Memory Memory does not hold sounds or words long enough to attach meaning

Strategies for Semantics  Time  “Meaningful” repeated exposure  Previewing  Generating/Answering questions  Recognizing story structure  Summarizing  Mental Imagery (exposure to technology provides images-students need to have directions for how to do this)  Paraphrasing  THEMING* (when varied classroom activities center around a theme, students can more easily comprehend their related readings

Things that can go wrong with reading… Auditory Problems Prevents hearing the phonemes correctly Visual Problems Prevents seeing letters clearly Prevents processing visual information accurately Auditory/Visual Processing Timings are not synchronized Semantics Word meaning is not known Working Memory Memory does not hold sounds or words long enough to attach meaning

Working Memory Stress Working Memory

Some things to consider ESL Students & Reading

First Priorities…  Health  Attachment  Adjustment

Remember…spoken language is the foundation to literacy  “It is generally counterproductive to hasten young non-English speaking children into reading English without adequate preparation in speaking English”  Reading in any language requires a solid, mental lexicon of spoken vocabulary  Learning to speak English should be the first priority How the Brain Learns to Read, Sousa, p

Ideally, research supports…  Children should be taught to read in their native language first  Bilingual lessons and cooperative learning both increase ESL student achievement But…  **Bilingualism is not an option for the majority of IA adopted children**  It is most productive to concentrate on developing and facilitating mastery of spoken English and reading will follow  Forget the grade level!!

Thank you! Q & A