Maryanne Wolf

Maryanne Wolf, Director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, UCLA; Professor, Department of Child Study and Development, Director, Center for Reading and Language Research, Tufts University, presents The Reading Brain and Dyslexia

[visioncenter]

Maryanne Wolf presents so clearly about everything that needs to happen after the "word appears" (10:35) . However, getting the word to appear is another, mostly overlooked story, within itself. And that is because we live with the illusion that seeing is easy. But seeing is something we do. Sometimes, organizing the cameras (the eyes) appropriately, to be able to gather the information can be so energy-sapping, that there are not simply enough resources available for the reader to carry out all the processing required. And sometimes people just fail at it.
If we continue to confine our concept of vision to 20/20, (how small we can see) but not in addition to how well we can keep the words clear in the book (eye-focusing), and get, and keep our eyes teamed up together, and then move the whole apparatus from word to word, then many millions of children will fail to reach their learning potential, because of (mostly removable) visual impediments to learning. And this will be true even though they have the great vocabulary that Prof. Wolf is telling us (rightly so) is so important.
After all, we're never reading the words on the page. We're only ever reading the words that show up in our consciousness. And that, is the other story.