Have you heard of Stanislas Dehaene yet? If you have dabbled in the science of reading adventure, then you may have found his book that discusses the new science of how we read. My blogs have slowed considerably in the past two months as I attempt a learning curve around the science of reading and its implications for structured literacy in the French immersion classroom. In my search for foundational knowledge about how the brain learns to read, I ran across the name Stanislas Dehaene – a well-known French neuroscientist who is putting recent groundbreaking neuroscience into language that begs to be read, heard, and discussed with colleagues.
In my previous blog, “4 Always Do Tips to start your science of reading adventure”, I gave a brief overview of my start on this path. Join me on this fascinating journey into the most powerful computational piece of equipment known to humans: THE BRAIN. As I continue to digest his writing on my science of reading adventure, I will briefly summarize what he writes about, and then turn to my French classroom where I will wonder how to apply the research into practice. The blogs will be a short read and the video versions (see below) will be quick watches.
Dehaene published the book Reading in the Brain: The new science of how we read in 2010 and it has strong implications for all classrooms, all grade levels, and all subject areas. Today, I begin to publish a quick blog each week, for the next several months, to summarize each chapter (or parts of chapters) of Dehaene’s book.
- What does it say?
- How does it impact what we know and do as teachers?
- What might this mean for my learners?
For me, Dehaene is a “wow” discovery for his books, his videos, and his ability to present it to me, a lay reader, in a way that makes me keep listening and reading. This first blog reflects only the introduction to Reading in the Brain. Each week will reveal a new chapter in his book.
Who is Stanislas Dehaene?
Stanislas Dehaene, PhD, is a professor of cognitive psychology at the Collège de France, the director of Unit 562 (Cognitive Neuroimaging) at INSERM (Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale) in Paris, and an author of numerous books and articles. His work focuses not only on literacy and the brain, but also numeracy and the brain. To learn more about Stanislas Dehaene and his work, there is an 18-minute Dehaene TED talk from Marseille (in French). You can change the subtitles to be auto generated into English, if needed, and he often presents in English.
Stanislas Dehaene – Wow Moment #1
The basic goal of his book is to explain his “knowledge of recent and little-known advances in the science of reading”. (Dehaene, 2010, p. 2) Our brains are basic circuitry and Dehaene refers to this circuitry as a “black box” because, for so many centuries, we were not allowed to study this part of the “airplane” as it was flying (because we were alive). For hundreds of years, we could only recover and study the airplane’s black box (the brain) after the plane crashed (after we died).
Stanislas Dehaene – Wow Moment #2
Reading, by the way, is not a natural function of the brain. The human brain has not evolved enough since “the alphabet itself is only 3,800 years old” to make reading a natural process like speaking is. (Dehaene, 2010, p. 4) We must retrain parts of the brain’s circuitry to recognize and lift letters and meaning off of a page. Today’s brain imaging advances allow neuroscientists like Dehaene to (non-invasively) study monolingual and bilingual subjects from across the globe to learn how the brain’s circuits form the basis of learning to read.
“All over the world, the same brain regions activate to decode a written word … in French or in Chinese, learning to read … goes through a genetically constrained circuit.” (Dehaene, 2010, p. 7)
Stanislas Dehaene – Wow Moment #3
Teacher / classroom implications: Because scientists can analyze how print arrives at the center of our retina and “[explodes] into a myriad of fragments that our brain later pieces back together”, teachers should use this information to understand how explicitly the brain learns to read. (Dehaene, 2010, p. 8) As we understand this constrained and specific brain circuitry, we question how our instructional delivery must impact (for better or worse) our struggling readers, dyslexics, and the illiteracy / inequity that has been present in schools for the past 40+ years. What is my role as a teacher in helping grade 11 French students learn to read?
Teacher reflection to push us into the next chapter: How does the brain repurpose areas in order to learn how to read? What are these areas and do my instructional routines impact students learning to read in more than one language?
Please come back to this blog each week to read more about Stanislas Dehaene and his brain research and/or watch it on my YouTube Channel: L’Essentiel French Resources. Please like this video and consider following my channel to get the latest video blogs.
Resources:
– Dehaene, S. (2021). How we learn: Why brains learn better than any machine…for now. Penguin Books..
– Dehaene, S. (2010). Reading in the brain: The new science of how we read. Penguin Books. (I receive a commission if you purchase either Dehaene book from Amazon.)
