Keynote Speaker - Maryanne Wolf

Morning and Afternoon Keynote Speaker

Dr. Maryanne Wolf

"The Evolution of the Reading Brain in a Digital Age: Implications for Reading's Development, Instruction, and Disorders"

Maryanne Wolf is the John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service, Director of the Center for Reading and Language Research, and Professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University. She received her doctorate from Harvard University, where she began her work on the neurological underpinnings of reading, language, and dyslexia. Among her awards for teaching and research are the Distinguished Professor of the Year award from the Massachusetts Psychological Association, the Teaching Excellence Award from the American Psychological Association, the Distinguished Researcher Award from Tufts University, a Fulbright Research Fellowship award for research on dyslexia in Germany, the Norman Geschwind Lecture Award from the International Dyslexia Association for neuroscience research in dyslexia, and the Alice Ansara Award for work in dyslexia. Along with colleagues Dr. Robin Morris, and Dr. Maureen Lovett, Prof. Wolf was awarded the NICHD Shannon Award for Innovative Research and several multi-year NICHD grants to investigate new approaches to reading intervention, including the RAVE-O reading intervention program, created by Prof. Wolf and members of the Center.

The author of numerous scientific publications, Wolf recently completed a book for the general public, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, published by Harper-Collins in the United States, by Icon Books in England, and now translated into ten languages and audio version. Described as one of the Best Books of the Year by Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and an Acclaimed Book of the Year by US News and World Report, Proust and the Squid received the Marek Award from the New York International Dyslexia Association for the best book of the year on reading.

Wolf’s recent research interests include reading intervention, early prediction, fluency and naming speed, cross-linguistic studies of reading, the relationship between entrepreneurial talents and dyslexia, and the uses of brain imaging in understanding dyslexia and treatment changes.

______________________________

NOTES:

The Evolution of the Reading Brain: Implications for Reading’s Development, Instruction, and Disorders

Center for Reading and Language Research – conducting genetic research

Music and language related research. Exposure to music at an early age makes a difference in how they progress with language development.

What are children like BEFORE they read?

What happens in the developing brain? Brain imaging is becoming so important to understanding who will have learning disabilities, Dyslexia.

Intervention –
- 100 exposures for a child with Dyslexia where it take the average child 10 exposures – memory as it relates language
- Find all different ways for the exposure – technology, board games, BE CREATIVE to maximize the exposure
- The use of different strategies that are engaging

The emotional burden for a person with Dyslexia, especially children/students. It is not the child’s fault.

A non-static thought of intelligence. A sense of fluidity about learning.

From decoding to fluency for comprehension.

Three Words to leave with today;
- Polysemy – many interesting meanings (MIM), multiple meanings and semantic felxibility
- Cerebral Diversity – nature of the brain of a person with Dyslexia
- I missed one :-/

Metaphor for Personal-Intellectual Dimension in Reading: Proust
- We feel quite truly that our wisdom begins with that of the author… By a law which perhaps signifies that we receive the truth from nobody, that which is the end of their wisdom appears to us as but the beginning or ours. – Marcel Proust

Principles of Brain Design Underpinning Cultural Inventions
- Ability to form new connections
- Capacity for “working groups” of neurons to specialize (eg., pattern recognition, letter patterns and common words)
- Capacity for automatization

What is reading? –
- Taking existing circuits in the brain to form new understanding.
- No child has a circuit. We teach them our languages circuit!
- Each language has its own circuit.

English is a morophonemic language.
- Silent letters carry the history of the word; muscle… muscular.
- Important to teach the logic of the language.

Cognitive Development: Concepts Matter
- Concepts in first language are essential platform for concepts and vocabulary in second language

Reading never just happens, Everything matters;
- Visual and auditory development
- Cognitive development
- Language development
- Social development
- Emotional development
** This is why reading to children is so important from the start of child’s life.

Everything Matters
Phonemes (smallest sounds)
Orthographic Parts: Letters, Letter Patterns and Common Words
Semantic Meaning of Words: Vocabulary Development, semantic breadth and depth, verbal representations of words, visual representations of words
Syntactic uses of words - Syntax Matters, parts of speech are important to
Morphemes Matter - Orthographic stepping stones, semantic, and syntactic information. Morphing speeds up the brain.

Fluent Comprehension - Influenced in many parts of the brain.

37% of 4th grade students across the country are not fluent - 61% for African Americas, 54% Hispanic and 26% European

Fluent, Feeling Brain - A fluent, comprehending reader "feels" more than ever before. Growing activation of the limbic system.How much reading changes us depends on how we feel.

The more connections you have to words the more meaning they have to you. The better you can read with more connections and meanings.

Rapid Automatized Naming (R.A.N) and R.A.S.

BIG PICTURE:
- Study of english letter patterns and morphology
- Word segmentation skills
- Strategies of semantic skills and vocabulary growth