My name is Ruby, and my age is 8. What's the
science of how people learn to read?
Hi, I'm Mark Seidenberg, I'm the vilas professor
in the department of psychology at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, and I've studied reading
for a long time.
The science of how children learn to read,
well that's something that's been studied
in laboratories all around the world, in many
languages, and many different writing systems,
and so quite a lot of snow. And for children
who are beginning to read, there are three
main components. One of them is something
they already know, and that's how to use a
spoken language. So a beginning reader already
knows how to talk and comprehend a language,
like English, and that's gonna be helpful
to them when they start reading.
The second thing they have to learn is about
print. How do the symbols on the page work?
And in all the writing systems of the world,
they work basically the same way. They are
ways to represent speech. So, a child learning
to read English has to learn how the letters
and combinations of letters correspond to
the spoken language they already know.
The third component is knowledge, knowledge
of the world. In order to comprehend what
you're reading, you need to understand something
about the topic. So what children know about
different topics, different subjects greatly
affects how hard it is for them to read or
how easy it is. And some of that knowledge
you gain through direct experience. For example,
you might go to the zoo and learn about animals.
And some of that knowledge you really just
learn by reading. For example, about Sneetches
or about wild things or about other things
that you can't actually see in person. So,
the more you read, the easier it becomes to
read, and so that's why once a child gets
started, just the amount of variety of how
much they read really matters a lot. I wrote
a book about the science of reading and tried
to connect it to how children learn to read
in school. And what I found was that there
was a pretty big disconnection. From the science
we know, a lot of things about how reading
works and how children learn and about the
kind of obstacles they encounter and where
teachers and classroom activities can really
make a difference. But then we look at what
happens in classrooms in America and other
English-speaking countries, and we see a lot
of this knowledge we've gained isn't really
being used. That makes it harder for a lot
of kids to learn to read and even when they
do learn to read, it's been difficult and
so they may not like reading. And so the book
makes the point that if we could get a closer
connection between the science and educational
practices, more kids would succeed at reading
and more kids would like to read.
