Review of
Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain
for (my class at AU),
The Neuropsychology of Learning Disabilities
In Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf attempts to present, ostensibly for a general audience, an exhaustive history of the brain mechanisms responsible for reading, what happens when those mechanisms function atypically, and what we can learn about the cognitive processes necessary for reading. Yet while understanding this book surely requires less scientific knowledge than that necessary for understanding scientific journal articles, it is misleading to market it as appropriate for the general public. When I stumbled on Proust and the Squid several years ago, shortly after graduate school, I abandoned the book after reading not even a full chapter because I lacked the scientific background, or—in the scientific lingo that I can now understand—sufficient declarative, semantic, and associative memory. But other than Wolf’s (albeit generous) failure regarding audience—her optimistic or perhaps naive assumption that non-specialists in neuroscience and linguistics would be able to not only decode, but read expertly in the aforementioned highly technical fields—she succeeds fantastically, if only for a narrow audience of scientifically literate teachers and pedagogically inclined neuroscientists!
Despite the drawbacks that limit the audience of Proust and the Squid, current and pre-service teachers of all subjects, highly educated parents of learning disabled children, curriculum specialists, and researchers in the field of neuropsychology would benefit from learning about the cultural-historical and cognitive development of the reading brain. If neuroscience were to become a requirement in teacher education, reading this book would be the perfect culmination of that course, in that Wolf applies some basic neuroscience principles to the process of learning to read, which prompts the reader to recall what he or she learned, and presents some of the more complex processes of the brain, which will challenge the reader to pursue these areas independently and according to his or her particular interest. From her chronicling of the early history of reading in the beginning chapters, to the comparisons about reading and writing in various languages, to the discussion of the brain processes that render reading possible, to the profound insight that dyslexia provides both for its treatment and for the mechanisms of the typically reading brain, to her ultimate conclusions about teaching reading and the gifts dyslexia can bestow, Wolf succeeds in her aim to encapsulate “the story and science of the reading brain” into one thorough book.
She begins by telling parallel stories: the emergence of reading and writing in ancient history, and the development of reading and writing in the young brain. Writing began in Sumer in the form of tokens, and as a result of interactions between the environment and genes, the brain gradually became more adept at processing visual stimuli by endowing those stimuli with meaning and later combining those meanings to produce complete ideas. In technical terms, these are the sequential “epiphanies” of symbolic representation, “the insight that a system of symbols can be used to communicate across time and space” and “sound-symbol correspondence” (25-6). The Sumerian writing system began as only primarily logographic, which means that the symbols corresponded to concepts and whole ideas (hence the “logo” in logographic) “rather than [to] the sounds in the words” (34). But as the human brain became more specialized, this method proved inefficient, and some new symbols emerged to represent syllables; thus the later writing of the Sumerians can be characterized as a logosyllabary.
Neuroscientists have studied the way the brain processes this type of language by studying the brains of Chinese people, whose language is also a logosyllabary and also highly reliant on images. Interestingly, Chinese people have been found to store more linguistic information in motor memory than speakers of other languages, and this is assumed to be because Chinese characters are learned through repetition (37). Sumerian teachers taught children to read and write effectively by performing task analyses of these processes and then explicitly teaching the students words, making them remember and practice writing lists of logographic words separately from lists of syllabic words. This kind of task analysis, coupled with the “realization that the teaching of reading must begin with explicit attention to the principal characteristics of oral language” (39) resonates with the finding, confirmed by brain imaging, that phonological awareness and word recognition are the principal predictors in young children of later reading ability (105). While the first and second sections of the book discuss many other significant advances in the reading brain, the key idea is that act of reading changed the structure and function of the brain, which in turn became more advanced, which catalyzed a kind of cyclical growth that led to the production of complex systems of language (based on both logosyllabaries and alphabets) and the development of specificity in the brain.
In Part III, “When the Brain Can’t Learn to Read,” Wolf frames dyslexia and dyslexia research in a positive way, noting that recent neuroscience research offers hope for people with dyslexia and that the different way that people with dyslexia process language provides insight into the way the typical brain processes language. The squid analogy in the title is helpful here: “Examining why some brains cannot acquire written language gives us new insights into how the brain works, much as the central nervous system of a squid that can’t learn to swim quickly teaches us about what is required for swimming” (167). In other words, the way that various dyslexic brains adapt to be able to read serves as a contrast against which the typical reading brain can be understood.
The four principles that Wolf outlines in chapter 7 are especially relevant for teachers of students with language-based learning disabilities, as these principles shed light on better ways to teach reading and vocabulary. Because each of the four principles seems to apply to at least some children with dyslexia, Wolf concludes that it is worth considering each one.
The first, that reading problems emerge from flaws in the older areas of the brain, led to many studies that found this important implication about reading: phonological awareness, including sound-symbol correspondence and segmenting (colloquially, sounding out a word) is foundational for reading. This means that teachers and parents should focus children’s attention on the sounds of words through methods such as reading poetry.
The second, that “the failure to achieve automaticity” (176) causes reading problems, means that because a child with dyslexia has to expend so much effort on decoding, there is little time left for the brain to comprehend what it reads, and even less time for it to make inferences and predictions—or to “think beyond,” a key piece of literacy that refers to the process of making language concrete or permanent in written form so that the brain is freed up for deeper creative processes. This makes so much sense: I now understand why so many of my students struggle to make inferences while they are reading but have no such struggle when I present them with one sentence from which to make an inference. I would like to see additional research on this topic, for in order to make the process of inferencing while reading explicit, teachers need to know how it actually works. For example, one fascinating study by Zvia Breznitz of Israel indicated that there exists an “asynchrony” between the parts of the brain that process visual and auditory stimuli. Because these functions are out of sync, the theory goes, the brain does not have time to “reach the highest stages of reading development” (178-9).
The third principle, that impediments exist in the brain circuitry of those with dyslexia, helps us begin to understand why people with dyslexia sometimes have extraordinary spatial awareness and creativity, abilities that are usually attributed to the right side of the brain.
The fourth principle, that dyslexic brains develop different processes for reading, builds on the third and confirms what Orton Gillingham thought almost a century ago, “that during development the left hemisphere takes over the processing of words” (185). Supported by brain imaging studies, this principle corroborates the compromise, or “emergentist view” (which we studied in class), that while certain parts of the brain reveal a “soft bias” for some processes, the brain’s plasticity means that in the event of injury, other parts of the brain can assume responsibility for them. This principle leaves us with an important question: Why are parts of the left side of the brain ill-suited for processing language in people with dyslexia?
Lastly, there is an “unwanted principle,” the existence of which meshes with our knowledge that learning disorders are often the result of multiple factors and are more complex than we would like to believe. Together, the first four hypotheses back up this idea and suggest the sheer complexity of gene-environment interactions: “A few unusual genes cause several aberrant patterns of neuronal development of structures necessary for reading, resulting in the creation of whole new, less efficient circuits that were never meant to read” (192).
In just that sentence, this book exemplifies the gap between neuroscience and education. Without sufficient background knowledge, sentences like it would make little sense to educators; yet with that background, sentences like it can spur changes in instruction, and assuredly change the lives of students with dyslexia. Because Wolf takes on such an enormous interdisciplinary challenge in this book, potential readers should have at least minimal background knowledge in ancient history, linguistics, education, and neuroscience. Because Chapter 2, “How the Brain Adapted Itself to Read: The First Writing Systems” chronicles the early development of reading in ancient Sumer, then in ancient Egypt, and briefly touches on the Indus Valley, it’s imperative to have some conception of the historical, geographic, and cultural factors that shaped these early civilizations.
Historical knowledge is only required for the first of the three parts of the book, which covers more of the cultural and historical origins of reading, whereas linguistic knowledge is required to understand the entire book. Wolf has a tendency to define terms, and then only briefly, after she has already used them two or three times. For example, she incorporates the following terms into the narrative with either little or no explanation: “logosyllabary” (34), “semantic” (38), “phonological” (38), “universal reading system”(63), “regular alphabet” (64), “schemata” (90), “morphophonemic” (130), and many others. It is assumed that the reader understands other linguistic terms such as decoding, fluency, pragmatics, and automaticity. For example, the term “rebus principle” appears on page 34, explained via example rather than, by definition and example, and then later on page 45 without any clarification. Thankfully, she does allot three sentences to introduce morphology, a concept so important and nuanced that my college linguistics class spent at least a week discussing it:
Over time, the novice Sumerian readers also learned words that illustrated the common morphological properties of language (e.g. how two symbolic units can come together to make a new related word). Morphology is a system of rules for forming words from the smallest meaningful parts of a language, called morphemes. For example, in English the word “bears” is composed of two morphemes: the root word, “bear”; and the “s,” which indicates either a plural noun or the present tense of the verb “to bear.” (38)
I found this a helpful refresher, but someone without a linguistic background would likely be flummoxed. Likewise, the concept of “rime” appears first on page 99, without any explanation, and later on page 118, this time with only a brief explanation: “the final vowel + consonant pattern of a syllable, called the rime (the ‘at’ of ‘cat’). Instances such as these were frustrating not only because they are unnecessary but also because they impede—of all things—fluency. These examples make it clear that only readers who have some fundamental knowledge of linguistics will be able to comprehend the ideas in this book.
Of course, a background in linguistics is hardly enough; a potential reader should have a basic understanding of current pedagogical theory, as Wolf frequently references classroom instruction, observing that many of the typical practices of “well-meaning” teachers (175) are in fact detrimental to students with dyslexia. Familiarity with neuroscience, or at least with the basics of the brain and its functions, is also necessary. Numerous sketches of the brain and brain imaging studies appear throughout the book, and understanding them is crucial to understanding Wolf’s points. Concepts and terms such as lateralization, Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, brain lobes, brain imaging methods, plasticity, and myelination, among others, appear multiple times with little explanation. Proof of all of this necessary, specialized knowledge lies in the fact that the Notes section of the book is 59 pages long.
For someone with the background knowledge mentioned above, Wolf’s compelling story will prove enlightening and will shift the paradigm of many a teacher, parent, or researcher, as it did for me. While I will also change my instruction accordingly, likely by incorporating more explicit phonological and morphological instruction in my teaching of both reading and vocabulary, the book represents only the start of possible collaboration between neuroscientists and teachers. (In fact, there was no evidence that any full-time classroom teachers were consulted in the creation of this book!) An appendix or companion volume with practical applications would be extremely helpful. While I enjoy searching for better ways to teach and thankfully have the time for it, for many teachers neither is true. The summary of the history of dyslexia for teachers on pages 193 to 196 is of course useful, but could easily be bolstered with examples and teaching materials, either in this book or online. I wish that such a clearinghouse existed online—and perhaps one does—for seeing examples of both productive and detrimental ways of teaching reading and vocabulary to high school students with dyslexia. I highly recommend this book to other educators with backgrounds in neuroscience and linguistics, as it changed my paradigm for teaching English, challenged my assumptions about reading, and sparked my interest in the research of other neuroscientists at work on reading and reading problems.
WHIMETALOGUE 