The Reading Mind

A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads

Daniel T. Willingham

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781119301363
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Metodi didattici per la lettura

A Map to the Magic of Reading

Stop for a moment and wonder: what's happening in your brain right now—as you read this paragraph? How much do you know about the innumerable and amazing connections that your mind is making as you, in a flash, make sense of this request? Why does it matter?

The Reading Mind is a brilliant, beautifully crafted, and accessible exploration of arguably life's most important skill: reading. Daniel T. Willingham, the bestselling author of Why Don't Students Like School?, offers a perspective that is rooted in contemporary cognitive research. He deftly describes the incredibly complex and nearly instantaneous series of events that occur from the moment a child sees a single letter to the time they finish reading. The Reading Mind explains the fascinating journey from seeing letters, then words, sentences, and so on, with the author highlighting each step along the way. This resource covers every aspect of reading, starting with two fundamental processes: reading by sight and reading by sound. It also addresses reading comprehension at all levels, from reading for understanding at early levels to inferring deeper meaning from texts and novels in high school. The author also considers the undeniable connection between reading and writing, as well as the important role of motivation as it relates to reading. Finally, as a cutting-edge researcher, Willingham tackles the intersection of our rapidly changing technology and its effects on learning to read and reading.

Every teacher, reading specialist, literacy coach, and school administrator will find this book invaluable. Understanding the fascinating science behind the magic of reading is essential for every educator. Indeed, every "reader" will be captivated by the dynamic but invisible workings of their own minds.

1
On Your Marks

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Agenda for Chapter 1

To understand the purpose of reading. Before trying to understand how it works, it's useful to be clear on what the product of reading is—that is, what the act of reading accomplishes.

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In the Introduction we began our analysis of some of the mental processes that are used to read. For example, we said, “well, somehow you've got to recognize the letters on the page, and then figure out what word those letters signify.” That seems clear enough, but it will help if we back up a step and consider what reading is for. Cognitive psychologists often begin their study of a mental process by trying to understand the “why” before they tackle the “how.”

Visual scientist David Marr is often credited with this idea because he emphasized its importance in such a clear way, via this example.¹ Suppose you want to know the mechanism inside a cash register, but you aren't allowed to tear it open. That's akin to being a psychologist trying to understand how the mind reads; you want to describe how something works, but you can't look inside. If we watched a cash register in operation, we might say things like “when a button is pushed, there's a beeping sound,” and “sometimes a drawer opens and the operator puts in cash or takes some out, or both,” and so on. Fine, but what's the purpose of the beeps and the drawer? What's the goal here?

If we watched the cash register in operation and paid attention to function (not just what we're seeing), we might make observations like the order of purchases doesn't affect the total, and if you buy something and then return it, you end up with the same amount of money, and if you pay for items individually or all at once, the cost is the same. A sharp observer might derive some basic principles of arithmetic, as shown in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1. Watching a cash register. Observations of a cash register might lead to basic principles of arithmetic.

Observation	Arithmetic expression	Principle
The order of purchases doesn't affect the total	A + B + C = A + C + B = B + A + C, etc.	Commutativity
If you buy something, and then return it, you end up the same amount of money you started with	X – Y + Y = X	Negative numbers
If you pay for items individually or all at once, the cost is the same	(A) + (B) + (C) = (A + B + C)	Associativity

Knowing that the purpose of a cash register is to implement principles of arithmetic puts our earlier observations—keys to be pushed, numerals displayed—in a different perspective. We know what these components of cash register operation contribute to.

Let's try that idea with reading. What is reading for? We read in order to understand thoughts: either someone else's thoughts, or our own thoughts from the past. That characterization of the function of reading highlights that another mental act had to precede it: the mental act of writing. So perhaps we should begin by thinking about the function of writing. I think I need milk, I write that thought on a note to myself, and later I read what I've written and I recover the thought again: I need milk. Writing is an extension of memory.

Researchers believe that this memory function was likely the impetus for the invention of writing. Writing was invented on at least three separate occasions: about 5,300 years ago in Mesopotamia, 3,400 years ago in China, and 2,700 years ago in Mesoamerica.² In each case, it is probable that writing began as an accounting system. It was needed to keep records about grain storage, property boundaries, taxation, and other legal matters. Writing is more objective than memory—if you and I disagree about how much money I owe you, it's helpful to have a written record. Writing not only extends memory, it expands it. Creating new memories takes effort. It's much easier to create new written records.

Writing also serves a second, perhaps more consequential function: writing is an extension of speech. Speech allows the transmission of thought. The ability to communicate confers an enormous advantage because it allows me to benefit from your experience rather than having to learn something myself. Much better if you were to tell me to stay out of the river because the current is dangerous than for me to learn that through direct experience. Writing represents a qualitative leap over and above speech in terms of the opportunity it creates for sharing knowledge. Speech requires that speaker and listener be in the same place at the same time. Writing does not. Speech is ephemeral but writing is (in principle) permanent. Speech occurs in just one place, but writing is portable.

Frances Bacon wrote “Knowledge is power” in 1597, presumably after entertaining this thought. When I read his words, I think what Bacon thought, separated in time and space by more than 400 years and 3,500 miles. As poet James Russell Lowell put it, “books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.”³

Let me remind you of the point of this discussion. We're trying to describe the function of writing as an entrée into our discussion of the mental process of reading. I'm suggesting that writing is meant to preserve one's own thoughts, and to transmit thoughts to others. So now we must ask, “how is writing designed, such that it enables the transmission of thoughts?”

How Writing Might Work

Suppose that we live in a culture without writing, and we encounter a need to transmit thoughts to others who are not present. What method of written communicat...