84
Volume:
2019
,
March

Building the Biliterate Brain

Submitted By:
Brendan Faughnan, Cristo Rey New York High School, New York, NY

Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf
Harper, August 7, 2018

In Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, her follow-up to Proust and the Squid, Maryanne Wolf explains the marvelous circuitry of the brain as it engages in an activity for which it was not originally hard-wired: reading. Remarkably, the circuitry of our brains is not only changed by the act of reading, but also it is changed by what we read. Moving beyond the science of reading, Wolf shares her concerns as she sees readers, particularly young readers, trading immersive reading experiences, like being transported to a new world by a novel, for the superficial, skimming approach of many digital readers. Among her concerns for young readers are those shared by teachers and school leaders: a lack of persistence with a text, the deterioration of student writing, and a decline in empathy once fostered by encountering new characters. Reader, Come Home, however, is not all pessimistic as Wolf proposes ways in which educators can help children develop a biliterate brain, one which is ready for both deep reading and the digital age. Written as a series of letters to the reader, Reader, Come Home invites educators and school leaders to consider how their own reading habits and levels of attention have changed in the digital age and what effect the digital age will have on children just learning how to read.

Categories
Technology
Science of Learning