Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain | 
| Author: Maryanne Wolf
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 9801
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.7 x 6.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0060186399
Dewey Decimal Number: 612.82
EAN: 9780060186395
ASIN: 0060186399
Publication Date: September 1, 2007
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Product Description
The act of reading is a miracle. Every new reader's brain possesses the extraordinary capacity to rearrange itself beyond its original abilities in order to understand written symbols. But how does the brain learn to read? As world-renowned cognitive neuroscientist and scholar of reading Maryanne Wolf explains in this impassioned book, we taught our brain to read only a few thousand years ago, and in the process changed the intellectual evolution of our species. Wolf tells us that the brain that examined tiny clay tablets in the cuneiform script of the Sumerians is configured differently from the brain that reads alphabets or of one literate in today's technology. There are critical implications to such an evolving brain. Just as writing reduced the need for memory, the proliferation of information and the particular requirements of digital culture may short-circuit some of written language's unique contributions—with potentially profound consequences for our future. Turning her attention to the development of the individual reading brain, Wolf draws on her expertise in dyslexia to investigate what happens when the brain finds it difficult to read. Interweaving her vast knowledge of neuroscience, psychology, literature, and linguistics, Wolf takes the reader from the brains of a pre-literate Homer to a literacy-ambivalent Plato, from an infant listening to Goodnight Moon to an expert reader of Proust, and finally to an often misunderstood child with dyslexia whose gifts may be as real as the challenges he or she faces. As we come to appreciate how the evolution and development of reading have changed the very arrangement of our brain and our intellectual life, we begin to realize with ever greater comprehension that we truly are what we read. Ambitious, provocative, and rich with examples, Proust and the Squid celebrates reading, one of the single most remarkable inventions in history. Once embarked on this magnificent story of the reading brain, you will never again take for granted your ability to absorb the written word.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 Confirming and Thought-Provoking July 4, 2008
I received this book as a gift from a student I tutored in preparation for the Advanced Placement Latin exam. Almost as soon as I had started to read it, I began to cite it and recommend it to my teacher friends and to parents of young children. Maryanne Wolf is a professor of child development and cognitive neuroscience at Tufts University and is director of the Center for Reading and Language Research. She is also the mother of two children, one of whom has dyslexia, and has reflected deeply on the reading history of her own family. In this book, she accomplishes three major tasks. First, she explains in detail the development of language within the human species. From the first cave drawings to the symbolic systems of Egyptian hieroglyphics and Akkadian and Sumerian cuneiform to the origin of the powerful alphabetic system of the Greeks, she charts the course of human literacy, including the changes in brain function required for fluency. A second theme of the book discusses the advantages and disadvantages that children face in their own journey toward fluent reading. Here Wolf describes reading and oral language environments within the home; activity inside successfully reading brains and inside those that are less successful, particularly as a result of some type of dyslexia; and various pedagogic practices that address both kinds of readers. A final theme that runs throughout the book regards the future of reading, both for children with innate challenges and for all children in the digital age.
With regard to her discussion of the development of language, I will certainly share parts of her work with my high school Latin students. She makes a strong case for the power of written, especially alphabetic, language as a vehicle that allows certain kinds of thought. I am particularly fascinated with her discussion of how the brain, which is not created for the specific task of reading, can nevertheless adapt and rearrange its own structures to allow for reading. On p. 217 she writes, "[T]he reordering of the brain's basic computations that occurs during the acquisition of reading becomes the neuronal basis for new thoughts. In other words, the new circuits and pathways that the brain fashions in order to read become the foundation for being able to think in different, innovative ways." This is a profound statement, elaborated on the previous pages. For example, on pp. 216-217 she writes, "Reading illuminates how the brain learns new skills and adds to its intelligence: it rearranges the circuits and connections among older structures.... The brain's design made reading possible, and reading's design changed the brain in multiple, critical, still evolving ways." I could not help thinking at this point about the notion of top-down causation within philosophy of mind in which the physical brain can give rise to a non-physical consciousness, which in turn can affect the physical world. It also made me think of The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force by Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley, which, unfortunately, sits on my shelf unread, but deals with a similar concept.
Her discussions of childhood advantages and disadvantages on the road to fluency were powerful confirmations of what some of us have known all along. Admittedly, I find more application for her narrative discussions of environmental factors within the home than the more technical analysis of what takes place in a dyslexic brain. She rightly emphasizes the importance of a linguistically rich home environment that includes much oral conversation and the reading of books within the comfort of a caregiver's embrace. According to Wolf, those lacking such a nurturing start to life can enter Kindergarten as much as 32 million words behind their peers. At one point she writes, "[S]ome educators throw their hands up with regard to English orthography and want children to learn everything in context, however ineffectually. It is essential during this phase for the semi-fluent decoding readers to acquire a good repertoire of the letter-pattern and vowel-pair `sight chunks' that make up words beyond the primer level." (p. 128) "Fluent recognition is significantly propelled by both vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. For the word-poor child, reality actually worsens because of the usually undiscussed fact that precious little explicit vocabulary instruction goes on in most classrooms." (p. 129) I couldn't agree more about what is needed or about the fact that this need is not being met. Foreign language pedagogy in this country has increasingly fallen into the trap of emphasizing context and the deliberate removal of explicit vocabulary and grammatical instruction. I think that there is even a latent form of racism involved in this approach, as presumable novel and "cutting-edge" techniques are often employed in inner-city and impoverished environments to save at-risk children, many of whom are of ethnic minorities. Already hindered by linguistically poor home environments, our school systems further defeat these children by not offering the kind of instruction they truly need.
Finally, Wolf's musings about the possible effects on reading by a digital, hyperlinked world, are thought provoking. In my own work I use the Internet for quick reference, but rarely ponder long about what I read. Deep, thoughtful reading, with many highlights and marginal annotations, occurs only when I read a book. I do think that the train has left the station with regard to digital texts, but Wolf gives us good reason to pause and allow our brains time to process the possible effects of not pausing and allowing our brains time to process.
 More squid than Proust June 4, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The subject is interesting, or appears to be so -- how reading is affected by and affects the brain, with the teaser that we are now entering a new post-reading age with unforeseeable consequences. Unfortunately the book is poorly written and poorly organized and has little new to say. Precisely where you expect analysis you get vagueness and unclear rhetoric. I'm not sure how useful it is to know what sections of the brain are activated when reading, or when reading with dyslexia, or reading Chinese rather than English. It is interesting if dyslexia is caused by attempting to read with the right hemisphere instead of the left, as is 'normal,' but this is not really new, either. Although the book claims to address issues concerning the brain rather than the mind, I think it really fails to make the necessary connections with its readers with this separation.
 Esoteric and Fascinating...... May 17, 2008
I initially found this book at the library (my second home) and although I read much more fiction than "non" was drawn to the theme. What voracious reader does not want to understand why reading a book is a joy and a passion for some of us and a hideous chore for others?
One of my new friends is severely dyslexic and when I saw that the author had a vested interest in the subject I felt that this was a work that would be accessible to a lay person as well as a scientist or academic.
After reading about 1/2 of the book I decided I needed to have this one for the personal library. It was fascinating introduction to the concepts of how our species became "symbol based communicators"!
teachers pet May 17, 2008
terrific book
NO TEACHER SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO APPROACH A CLASSROOM BEFORE READING THIS TEXT
Helpful and Educatonal Book March 31, 2008
I thought this was a good book for a layman like me. My son has a learning disability related to reading. That is why I wanted to read this book. The book helped me understand how complex reading really is and what my son is probably experiencing. I would recommend this book to anyone who has similar problems.
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