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From: AndresMuro@aol.com
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Subject: [NIFL-4EFF:2373] Re: Fw: Overview concepts of Michael Pressley
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Tom asks: "I wonder what the brain actually does when you read. Does it "talk" to you inside your head? Does the
visual stream convert to a talking person in your head
that you are mentally listening to. What do you do if you encounter the new word like "dimasue" (a nonsense word)? Don't you apply mentally sound it out to decode it so you can say it in your head and thus speak it."
Hi Tom:
Well, actually yes and no. In some people, sound is processed in the Wernicke's and Brocca's area of the brain in the temporal or parietal lobe (I think). It has been a while since I studied this. However, these are the areas that are responsible for processing and interpreting auditory messages. The wernicke's are stores sounds and associates them with alphabetic/phonetic spelling. For many people, this is normal and we learn to sound words phonetically and to process phonemes. For many, linguistically, language is a relation of sound-image. The sound kept in the Wernicke's. Area is tied to an image. The image can be a thing or a phoneme.
For some people, and in some languages, the brain processes language pictographically. The easiest way to see this is with the deaf. The deaf do not hear, so they cannot master a sound based language. So they learn language through symbols. American Sign Language is a symbolic language. So, when I feel tired I put my hands on my chest and I drop them slightly, making a tired phase, and this symbolizes being tired. However, there is no association with sounds in learning the word tired, only the image of the hands dropping from your chest and the facial expression. This is not stored in the sound area of the brain, but in the occipital lobe, where images are stored. Now, how de the Deaf learn Standard English. They need to make pictographs out of English words. So, the word "tired" becomes a pictograph of the image of the hands dropping from the chest. There is no phonetic association, because the brain of the deaf cannot store sounds. The deaf learn written language by developing pictographic templates of Standard English for the signs in Sign Language.
Chinese language is pictographic and is also stored in the occipital lobe. Japanese language is divided into Kanji and kana. Kana is phonetic and Kanji is pictographic (from Chinese). Kana symbols are stored in the temporal/or parietal lobe and Kanji symbols are stored in the occipital lobe. Most, learn both systems, but some have difficulty learning one, or the other depending on the form of dyslexia that they may have. Some dyslexics have difficulty processing sound-images (deafness is an extreme form of dyslexia), while others have difficulty processing picture images.
This is of course a very brief and unsophisticated explanation of the brain and language processing. Laterality also has to do with how we process language. For example, the left brain is responsible for processing sounds and phonemes, but the right side is responsible for processing meaning and metaphors and things as wholes. So the left brain may learn how to spell and sound the words "eat, heart and out". But the right brain is responsible for us understanding that "eat your heart out" means "be envious of something". Also, while the left brain is responsible to giving meaning to a short sentence, like "the cat eats". The sentence "while the cat was eating in the living room next to the sleeping dog, the owl was resting on the branch that allowed her to see the eating mouse" is processed in the right side of the brain. The left side is responsible for linear and dyachronic processing. The right is responsible for wholistic synchronic processing. These two skills are learned at different stages and through different practices. Dyachronic means through time. So I don't need to process something all at once to understand it. Synchronic, or at the same time needs to see the whole thing at once to be understood. Music is synchronic. Notes by themselves are meaningless. But the ability to put notes together into one whole, allow us to hear music.
The point of all this is that there is not one way to teach that is best for every circumstance, but rather, we need to have expertise in different approaches and the validity of these, at different stages of reading acquisition. Also, the brain is also very adaptable and when one part of the brain is not working, another part of the brain may take over.
I apologize for the simplicity of my explanation, but it has been a while since I have dwelled in brain anatomy, language and meaning. Also, there have been a lot of new discoveries in Language and the brain.
Andres
In a message dated 6/12/2003 10:14:51 AM Eastern Standard Time, tom zurinskas <tzurinskas@yahoo.com> writes:
>I wonder what the brain actually does when you read.
>Does it "talk" to you inside your head? Does the
>visual stream convert to a talking person in your head
>that you are mentally listening to.
>
>What do you do if you encounter the new word like
>"dimasue" (a nonsense word)? Don't you apply mentally
>sound it out to decode it so you can say it in your
>head and thus speak it. Then you try to find clues
>from root words or context as to meaning as to make a
>guess. Probably you'd ask someone and if they knew
>the word. Then they'd speak the word and the
>definition. Then you would have a sound byte to
>remember the word pronunciation associated with the
>text. That would be primary. Then the next time you
>read it that little voice in the head would say the
>word instantly.
>
>No?
>
>Tom Zurinskas
>
>
>--- RSStone74@aol.com wrote:
>> Hello George and Meta. George -- thank you for
>> referring me to the Pressley paper. It is excellent.
>> I greatly appreciate the help you are providing in
>> the identification of literature that adds
>> alternative thinking to the NRP recommendations.
>>
>> Meta -- I'd like to offer a few thoughts re: your
>> questions to George from the perspective of Dolores
>> "Dee" Tadlock, Ph.D.'s "constructivist reading
>> theory" (Piaget's learning theory and brain research
>> applied to reading).
>>
>> Your question:
>> COP #1 refers to determining the purpose for
>> reading. Does that fit in any
>> way with Pressley's statements on * Predicting
>> upcoming text content*?
>>
>> My response:
>> Rather than a relationship to purposeful reading,
>> predictions contribute directly to our ability to
>> interpret text. For example, when I learned to speak
>> Spanish, one of the first words I learned was
>> "querer" -- to want. As I learned more about
>> Spanish, I learned that, in Spanish, you change the
>> ending of a root word to change who that word
>> applies to -- "o" = I; "es" = you; "e" = he or she;
>> "en" = they; "emos," "amos," "imos" = we. Therefore,
>> "quiero" means "I want" -- when I was a very young
>> child, I learned what "I want" means, ergo, an
>> example of grounding predictions in "meaning."
>> Thereafter, when ever I heard quiero, quieres,
>> quiere, quieren, queremos, I always returned to
>> "querer" (my understanding of "to want") and then
>> scanned my memory for the correct ending to reflect
>> my knowledge of person (I, you, he/she, they, we).
>> Knowledge of "want" is stored in one place,
>> knowledge of person is stored in another, knowledge
>> of querer is stored in yet another, and knowledge of
>> !
>> the Spanish representations of "person" (emos) is
>> stored someplace else. Together, querer+emos equals
>> queremos and, combined with my knowledge of "want"
>> and "person," my understanding of "we want." Today,
>> I know "queremos" so well that I am barely aware
>> that I combine all my knowledge to construct my
>> understanding of the singular word. "Prediction" is
>> an act whereby the brain simultaneously and
>> instantaneously seeks to locate ALL of those places
>> where information and/or knowledge are stored.
>>
>> Prediction is the metacognitive aspect of reading in
>> which the brain seeks the accumulated knowledge that
>> will make sense of language (including text).
>> Children and adults who function too much on phonics
>> and phonemic awareness alone don't do this because
>> they are hyperfocused on decoding as the main event
>> of reading, as opposed to the metacognitive nature
>> of reading.
>>
>> Your question:
>> If we can look at the current research from a
>> Critical but Balanced Perspective, might we conclude
>> that whole language advocates and skills-based
>> advocates need no longer vex each other.
>>
>> My response:
>> If I may be so bold as to say so, the thing that is
>> fueling the "reading wars" (skill-based vs. whole
>> language) is the auditory processing theory. It is
>> flawed -- and it is driving beliefs about the
>> importance of phonics and phonemic awareness. Of
>> course alphabetics are involved in reading -- no
>> question about it!! But they are not the primary
>> driver in reading development (emphasis on the word
>> "development"). Accessing all stored knowledge in
>> the brain that helps support predictions (including
>> the knowledge of alphabetics), logically IS the
>> driving force in reading development (Dolores
>> Tadlock, unpublished).
>>
>> The continuing problem with both the skill-based and
>> whole language views of reading is that neither
>> correctly identifies what the human brain is
>> actually doing when it reads. Both are based,
>> instead, on assumptions about the best way to teach
>> reading. See the dilemma?
>>
>> Dr. Tadlock's theory and methodology are grounded in
>> what the human brain DOES when it reads.
>>
>> Rhonda Stone
>> Parent Advocate, Reading Issues
>> Secretary, The Literacy Alliance
>> Research Assistant, Dolores Tadlock, Ph.D.
>> 509-307-1978
>> RSStone74@aol.com
>
>
>=====
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