An Insider Look Into The Brain of Struggling Readers (Poster)

September 22, 2014
There is a wide variety of factors that affect students literacy development. These factors can be divided into external and internal factors. The external part relates to things such as home environment, access to books, the social and economic standing of the family…etc. The internal factors relate to attitudes, emotions, psychological make-up and most importantly, the physiology of the brain.

As is shown in the beautiful visual below created by We Are teachers, struggling readers have certain brain peculiarities that are usually not found in normal students. These brain differences are part of why these students are struggling readers after all, but the great thing about this is that science proves that these brain differences can be redressed. The infographic below captures some interesting facts about the brain of struggling readers, how it works, and the different ways to help struggling readers become better readers.

Here are some of the facts that stood out to me from this visual:

• Struggling readers suffer from an underdeveloped left brain part which is mainly responsible for phonological processing (creating connections between letters and sounds or phonemes).
• For struggling readers, the WERNICKE'S Area (the area responsible for storing vocabulary and sounds) shows less activity and may even get inactive.This means that for some kids, every word they come across is a new word for them.
• Auditory-processing problems might be behind some of the problems struggling readers face. When something interrupts the brain's ability to process sounds, it can be difficult to distinguish between words like rock, rocks, and rocked as an example.

Access the full downloadable version of this graphic from this LINK.

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