Throughout grade school there was nothing I disliked more than reading. It didn’t matter whether I was reading a novel, textbook, or magazine...I hated it. So naturally, I felt that movies and TV shows felt more relevant to my life because they were easier to visualize. In second grade I remember being put in the remedial reading course because I bombed the reading placement test I was given when I went to a new school. Reading just wasn’t for me.
In the article Brain Activity Predicts Reading Skills: Children could benefit from personalized lessons based on brain scans Mo Costandi argues that reading ability in children correlates to development of the arcuate and inferior longitudinal fasciculi. The researchers, Jason Yeatman and his colleagues at Stanford University, did a longitudinal DTI study with 55 participants from 7 to 15 years of age to see how the development of the arcuate and inferior longitudinal fasciculi developed over three years. They found that the development of the arcuate and inferior longitudinal fasciculi differed in stronger and weaker readers. These results suggest that it might be possible to anticipate if a child will find learning to read to be especially difficult, and in turn help make specific reading lessons for individual children.Looking back, I would have loved to have specially tailored reading lessons that aided in my learning to read, but like most kids, I would have declined the magnetic resonance scan. But this just doesn’t seem like a practical way to help children learn to read. Given that a diffusion tensor image is obtained with a magnetic resonance machine it is most likely hard to get children to go into the machine. Running a magnetic resonance scanner is not cheap and probably not worth the cost to diagnose a child as a potentially weak reader. Maybe in the near future we will be able to use cheaper and less claustrophobic neuroimaging techniques to anticipate children’s reading ability.
News Article:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=brain-connectivity-predicts-reading-skills
Study:
http://intl.pnas.org/content/early/2012/10/04/1206792109.abstract
This is an interesting study that I believe has the potential for further research and expansion into how it may affect children as they grow up. Utilization of technology could possibly aid in identifying students who may have difficulty with reading early enough so that it could possibly be prevented or increase their ability to read before they fall behind too much. Yet, once reading skills have been predicted, it would also be necessary that students have the opportunity to receive tutoring or additional help if need be. I wonder to what extent this correlates to their scores in the reading comprehension section of the standardized tests that are administered starting elementary school. If there is strong correlation, perhaps scores could be used to either help narrow who would be a better candidate for undergoing such testing. Often times, students do not like to read because they are simply not interested in the books that are covered in school and do not take the time out to select other books to read. If schools started creating reward programs that encouraged students to read in any form for enjoyment, perhaps this could serve to further motivate students who may need to strengthen their reading ability by increasing the amount of time that they spend attempting to read and the attitude associated with such processes.
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