Learning to read is no easy feat.<\/p>\n
And for parents whose children are struggling to find momentum, it can be difficult to know how to help.<\/p>\n
Differing brain structures and functions can make learning to read seem like an uphill battle, but there is hope, say two Brock University experts in the field.<\/p>\n
Professor of Child and Youth Studies John McNamara says learning disabilities should be thought of as a difficulty in processing information arising out of small, but important, differences in brain structures that are present at birth.<\/p>\n
He also notes that researchers exploring the genetics of learning disabilities have found a few genes associated with learning disabilities, including those affecting reading.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe good news is that our brains are malleable and even though a child may have a genetic-based learning disability, with effective instruction we can shape the brain in ways that can compensate for and reduce these processing difficulties,\u201d says McNamara, an educational psychologist who studies young children with learning and reading disabilities.<\/p>\n
Associate Professor of Child and Youth Studies Erin Panda studies how the brain enables people to understand language, read and control attention. Panda\u2019s educational neuroscience research seeks to know how these processes differ between individuals and change with development, learning and effective intervention.<\/p>\n
Panda says different parts of the brain are involved in the various tasks of learning to read. One part recognizes letters and letter combinations, another stores words and their meanings in our internal \u2018dictionary,\u2019 while other parts hear and interpret the sounds of letters and words.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe brain is not naturally wired for reading,\u201d says Panda, the co-director of Brock\u2019s Developmental Neuroscience Lab. \u201cTo be able to learn how to read and decode words, children must be able to link the activity of those different brain areas together, which is challenging for some children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Panda and McNamara have several tips to guide parents and educators in helping children learn to read.<\/p>\n
They agree that systematic, explicit instruction in the reading process is the most effective way to support children\u2019s reading.<\/p>\n
Panda says a new emphasis in Ontario schools on \u201cstructured literacy\u201d has potential to improve reading outcomes for children who find learning to read challenging. This approach teaches children foundational reading skills, such as how to sound out combinations of letters, so they can form representations of letter patterns in their minds to draw upon in other situations.<\/p>\n
As children learn more combinations of letters and their corresponding sounds, they can put these together to build words, she says.<\/p>\n