Among literate individuals, written words are always processed in the left side of the brain (primarily in a small neural region known as the visual word form area?[JH1], or VWFA).? It is believed this part of the brain serves to break down words into phonological chunks?[JH2] ?so that they can later be built back up to derive meaning via frontal regions of the brain.??
In short, effective reading appears to require auditory discrimination: a significant tick in favour of the phonemic awareness camp when it comes to the so-called ¡°Reading Wars¡± between competing beliefs of how best to teach children to read.
Dyslexia, phonics and reading: a video guide to the neuroscience
A common question asked after learning about this neurological mechanism concerns foreign languages.?
Sure, this process of phonological decomposition makes sense for alphabetic scripts like English - but does it still occur with syllabic scripts (whereby each character represents a complete syllable) or logographic scripts (whereby each character represents a complete word)?
It turns out, yes.
Phonics and reading
The reason concerns ¡°granularity¡±.?Put simply, it appears that the VWFA can re-tune itself [JH3] to align with the smallest unit of sound relevant to each different form of writing?[JH4] .?
For instance, written using the Roman alphabet, the word ¡°English¡±?has six phonemes.?When reading this word, the VWFA breaks the word into six units and works to assign a phoneme to each.
However, in Cherokee syllabary, the word ¡°Cherokee¡±?is written using only three letters (CWY: C = Che, W = Ro, Y = Kee).?In this instance, the VWFA breaks the word into three units?[JH5] ?and works to assign a complete syllable to each.
Furthermore, in Mandarin logographic, the phrase ¡°tall mountain¡±?is written using only two symbols ( ¸ßɽ ).? In this instance, the VFWA breaks the sentence into two units?[JH6] ?and works to assign a complete sound to each.
Seeing as the process of breaking words down into relevant units of sound does not change across cultures or scripts, this suggests that deriving character/sound combinations is a key component to literacy development.
Dyslexia and reading?
Interestingly, dyslexia supplies another line of evidence in favour of phonologic training.?Within the UK, around 10 per cent of people [JH7] are estimated to have dyslexia.?Within Italy, however, only around 3.5 per cent of people [JH8] are estimated to have dyslexia.??
Seeing as both countries use the same alphabetic script, why might this be?
Italian is a transparent language: it contains about 25 phonemes that require only 33 written [JH9] character combinations to represent. Seeing as the ¡°rules of Italian¡± never change between words, few students struggle to master reading.??
English, on the other hand, is an opaque language: it contains about 44 phonemes that require over 1,100 written [JH10] character combinations to represent.?Seeing as the ¡°rules of English¡±?change frequently between words, many students struggle to master reading.
The fact that phonological opacity can drive dyslexia is further evidence that character/sound discrimination is essential for reading and should likely form a foundation of early literacy training.
Jared Cooney Horvath is a neuroscientist, educator and author. To ask our resident learning scientist a question, please email: AskALearningScientist@gmail.com
?
References?
[JH2]?Dehaene, S, and?Cohen, L?(2011). The unique role of the visual word form area in reading. Trends in cognitive sciences, 15(6), 254-262.
?[JH3]?Dehaene, S (2013.?
?[JH4] Cohen, L, et al (2002).?
?[JH5] Lair, A, Li, K, and Fox, P (2005).?
[JH6] Bolger, J, Perfetti, C, and Schneider, W (2005).?
?[JH7] Maurer, U, Zevin, J, and?McCandliss, B (2008).?
?[JH8] CACHE.
?[JH9] Barbiero, C, et al (2019).?
?[JH10] Lawson, W (2006).?
?
Want to keep reading for free?
Register with 91¶¶Òõ and you can read five free articles every month, plus you'll have access to our range of award-winning newsletters.
