Reading Causes Brain Changes

A parenting blog in the New York Times has an article here describing the changes in the brain that reading can cause in dyslectic  children.  The point of the article was that children with reading problems should be given more help and tutoring.

The real takeaway should be that children who are doing little reading, or who start reading late, should be given whatever kind of reading they are willing to do:  comic books, series books, graphic novels--whatever they will read.

I taught in an inner-city Catholic school and found that--when I stocked my room with comics and magazines and high-interest paperback, and told my poor readers just to sit and read--they gained an average of 18 months of reading ability for every 6 months I had them in that program.  In a regular class, they had been gaining about 3 months of skills every 6 months.

While one-on-one intensive tutoring may help, there is no substitute for very high-interest reading material.  And once a kid becomes hooked on reading, his reading scores soar, and he will become a lifelong reader.