Learning can change brain connections

Some very interesting scientific studies about how students learn to read and how to help struggling readers are coming from a somewhat unexpected area – the nation’s medical schools.

Using advanced “functional MRI” technology, medical research teams at places like Carnegie Mellon University and Yale Medical School have made some remarkable discoveries. Here is an article on the latest from Mellon which says that proper practice that leads to mastery can create permanent changes in our brains.

Among other things, the Mellon team looked at how brains changed when weak readers got an intensive program in better reading. While this article does not mention it, I have talked to the Mellon team and they use a program with good phonics approaches that are then followed by extra work in reading comprehension.

This isn’t the first set of interesting findings on reading to come from Carnegie Mellon. It builds on earlier work there and additional work by Bernard and Sally Shawitz at Yale Medical School. Both research teams are using functional MRI technology to actually “look” inside the brains of people while they read.

Kentuckians need to take note of this new scientific evidence.

One important note: this research isn’t coming from schools of education. It’s coming from the medical research community.

Another point: reading is a “drill to skill,” not a “drill and kill” effort. Kids in these medical team research programs start out with a healthy remedial program in phonics and then move to comprehension. The process has to be done in order if we want to develop the proper brain areas, and it has to be extensive, meaning there is practice, too.

We heard very different “stuff” from many reading gurus when KERA got started. In some schools, we still hear different “stuff.”

Now, real science is starting to blow holes in a lot of what we were told.

Hat tip to KSN & C.