KQED News Mind/Shift – Holly Korbey
“Because the human brain doesn’t come already wired to read, there is no “reading center” of the brain and there are no “reading genes.” As Proust and the Squid author Maryanne Wolf writes, each individual brain must learn how to read on its own. In learning to read, the brain performs an amazing feat: it creates a specialized circuit that’s just for reading, forging a new circuit by combining parts of the brain that were originally designed to serve other functions, such as retrieving names. This new “reading circuit” combines processes from different areas of the brain and then runs at a speed so fast it’s nearly automatic.” (more)