Reading and writing: more than just unite letters

The learning of reading and writing is a process directly related to the culture that depends on language development (Cook, 2010). In this sense, the brain does not include them in the packages of evolutionary learning necessary for the preservation of the species (Dehaene, 2009). This is unlike the language and the concept of number has to be learned from the interaction with the environment.

An usual   mistake of of formal education  is to believe that children can naturally link the sounds of language  with letters. The process can be compared with a trip to the moon: a little effort for an adult, a huge step for a preschool child.

This is because children learn to listen to whole words and eventually sentences, with a process that is modulated, even before birth and with broad cultural tools, even before the newborn leaves the warmth of the womb, and is able to hear the sounds of language (Dzib Goodin, 2011).

In contrast, both reading and writing, usually begin with small steps, where the task is to differentiate visually outlines of letters that children only have heard and because reading and writing are two different processes, reading uses the visual system mainly and is linked with motor actions, while writing adopted by the motor action and linked with visual skills. Hence the task is not only see and distinguish the letters of an alphabet, it also usually has at least uppercase and lowercase letters, but in the case of Russian language, also have to write letters to hand writing and  press words , which implies that they must learn 4 alphabets. Of course, I do not want to forget ideographic scripts that will surely become even more complex.

That's why to have a system ready to learn, children will have to relate graphemes (letters) to phonemes (sounds) and this will require separate the words they already know, like mom and dad into phonemes and then represent them with graphemes.

While at writing level, this must be considered as a cultural invention evolutionarily more recent that language, which consists not only of letters, but of specific grammatical rules because, unlike the language person - person where if part of speech becomes incomprehensible is possible to ask questions to the speaker, while at the reading is not possible to interact with the writer (Bates and Goodman, 1997).

And when a child is learning native language is allowed to make mistakes, of which adults take notice and will become the story of the childhood of their children, which allows them to repeat, redo, and play with wrong words spoken or compound sentences in a vague way, and it's socially accepted that the child is learning. And unlike behaviorism point of view that  explains children's language as a copy of the adult language,   recent studies show that children's speech modulate brain maturation depending the use and handling that makes the words depending on the cultural richness of the environment, which benefits the cognitive development (Hartshorne, 2009).

But the learning of reading and writing develops in a much less fun situation, where mistakes are not accepted and it moves away from the natural way the brain learns, as formal education is based on mindless repetition, which can even force the brain to make mistakes when performing tasks for which is not ready and this can slow the learning success (Tullis, 2011).

The brain learns by playing, trying new things at their own pace, changing the skills they already know. Taking the example of language, enjoy trying new sounds and phrases, and correcting mistakes slowly, slowly, in part, because the language is a need for interaction with others, takes the principle of cultural need.

In contrast, the writing does not have the opportunity to be enjoyable, and socially is not a need, but a school obligation. This produces that brain recognizes it as a cognitive challenge, adjust the look to a space defined, recognize characteristics of each of the different graphemes, and associate the sound to everyone, even those that do not sound like S at the end of a word, but that grammar should be considered. Shape and cadence to every word, and then form sentences, adjust the hand movement to the eye, learn the proper use of the writing instrument. Working in a sheet with a space that is usually only seen in school. When have you seen a book written into squares? Unless a textbook, it is not usual half of writing, it reads the text in white sheets ... visually squares are weird, but the preschool children have to learn to make marks in that finite space, the line must have cadence, and everything must be done clean and tidy ...

In the case of reading, children learn first by association and their first efforts are widely praised. Children who dare to read the signs on the billboards or the names of the brands. These early efforts, seen from parents as early symptom of superior intelligence, are necessary to play, to enjoy reading, and it will be until they start impositions and letters and logos will be exchanged for signs to be recognized one by one, correctly and effectively. That's when it gives way to read for pleasure reading for obligation.

For the brain, the requirement is a mature visual system to achieve and differentiate pattern recognition, size, distance, space, capable to produce a oculomotor movement with cadence that allows reading from left to right and top to bottom, a memory system that allows remembering what was read and allow contextualization of ideas. Of course it will take a vocabulary sufficient to understand words and will be added to the formula reading motivation, and that this activity be used and seen as culturally and personally significant (Vygotsky, 1995; Forget, Buiatti and Dehaene, 2009).

In the case of writing, this has been linked to language and reading. Of course the first step is simply to copy letters, a task that is not recognized as a real writing, because  it is said that this process aims to convey his own ideas to others. Although the debate can be extensive, but children and parents feel proud when, after a few tries, children can write their own names. Recognize the graphemes that represent the sounds of their name is a huge step. This requires as already mentioned, oculo-motor maturation proper recognition of the space where you type, maturity of laterality (Dehaene, Nakamura, Jobert, Kuroki, Ogawa and Cohen, 2009), recognition of sounds and of course the need to write, because this produce a cultural need to repeat the action.

Hence, to get to reading books and writing articles there are some extra steps, especially again to be a fun activity as necessary and possible. Studies conducted with families of successful readers and writers show that the environment plays an important role in the development of these skills (Wasik & Slavin, 1993).

Summing up the ideas, writing and reading are processes that go hand in hand, which shares the brain processes visual, auditory, speech and language, they are dependent of  motor skills, but they are more at the expense of cultural stimulation to open the door to learning in general development. Touch the foundations of mathematics, seen as a distinct language to natural language and require patience and stimulating environment to develop. Although there are precocious children, children are not born reading and writing, this will be the attraction and passion for both of them to push someone to the pleasure of knowledge.

Unlike the traditional idea that the child doesn't learn to read because is lazy, neurocognitive vision proposes that the brain can create unstable or immature neural networks that can be re set up with the right strategies, based on what the child knows and wants to know.

Can we have readers and writers?. I have no doubt that it is possible, if they are allowed to make their own mistakes and discover their capabilities. Miles away from the vision of what is right or wrong, because this attitude makes students come to college without writing a single sentence of their own. The copy (now cut and paste) that fills pages and pages that make teachers think they know something, far from helping, away from the initial idea of writing: students need to communicate ideas. And of course deny the possibility of enjoying reading, whatever, if it takes someone to learn something new, useful or just kill time.

In this sense, it's not possible to ignore technological advances, as the child learns to send short but informative messages either by a chat or a sms those forces to convey an idea in just few words. Certainly this may distort the language, because children begin to use pseudo-words, but it’s a way to use writing as a means of communication necessary. On the other hand, tablets and Internet browsing, accesses to hyperlinks that a subject relates to another. While it is true that you can not ignore traditional forms of reading and writing, as countries do not yet cover 100% internet access, not all social strata have the tools. It's just another modality.

Reading and writing habits  will have an important role in the development of cognitive processes of learning. How long and when they should apply?. Unlike the language and sensory processing there is a not critical moment. Clearly, there are adults that have adapted to the environment without having to read and write, just as children between 2 and 3 exhibit precocious abilities in some cases are so high that they will open the doors of academic success, while in other cases, society will destroy them  intellectually and eventually will be hampered their academic progress.

Alma Dzib Goodin

If you would like to know more about my writing you can visit my web site:
http://www.almadzib.com

References

Bates, E. and Goodman, JC. (1997)  On the inseparability of grammar and the lexicon: evidence from adquisition, aphasia and real time processing. Language and cognitive processes. 12 (5) 507-584.

Cook, G. (2010) The brain and the written word. Scientific American Mind. 21 (1) 62-65.

Dehaene, S., Nakamura, K., Jobert, A., Kuroki, C., Ogawa, S. and Cohen, L. (2009) Why do children make mirror errors in reading? Neural correlates of mirror invariance in the visual word form area. Neuroimage. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.09.024

Dehaene, S. (2009) Reading in the brain: The science and evolution of a human invention. Viking Adult: Penguin Group. USA.

Dehaene, S. (1999) The number sense: how mind creates mathematics. Oxford University Press. USA.

Dzib Goodin, A. (2011) Introducción a los proceso neurocognitivos del aprendizaje: leguaje, lectura, escritura y matemáticas. En prensa. Servicios Editoriales Balám. México.

Forget, J., Buiatti, M. and Dehaene, S. (2009) Temporal integration in visual word recognition. Journal of cognitive neuroscience. 1 (2) 1-15.

Hartshorne, J. (2009) Why don’t babies talk like adults? Scientific American Mind. 20 (5) 59 – 61.

Tullis, P. (2011) Preeschool tests take time away from play and learning. Scientific American Mind. 22 (6) 26-29.

Vygostky, L. (1995) Pensamiento y lenguaje. Paidos. España

Wasik, BA. and Salvin, RE. (1993) Preventing early reading failure with one to one tutoring: a review of five programs. Reading research quaterly. 28 (2) 178-200.

Thinking about education: the school of the future

I've never had one of those ideas that worth a million dollars, but if one day I have one, I guess it would begin to build it with what I want to sell or share. That's why if one day the experts of education and learning will be seated to build a new paradigm, I think the first step would be to find out what everyone has in common, that,  can make successful the new paradigm globally.

I think if I want my educational idea succeed, I would try to cover a large market, in this case I want the whole world (literally, the world) can have the opportunity to learn without discrimination, without being labeled as stupid or genius. I think those labels, instead of helping, kill futures CEOs . I want the children can have happy childhoods and become successful adults. It's a simple goal, right?.

So I would sit down to analyze everything what I learned with so many discussion groups about education. The most reactionary group and I think with best proposals is Learning without Frontiers, the group advocates for a education with no walls based on technology and innovation. But something is missing.

First, think: what's what around the world all people have in common?

It is neither money nor technology, for example  Latin American countries are far from economic competition (World Economic Forum, 2011), and in more than one occasion I said that education does not require money or speeches, so I wish to continue being consistent with my ideals.

The technology comes sometimes with a delay of years to countries with less recourses, and it is natural for families to think first to feed their children than in a technological toy that will open the door of education.

Certainly there is a cultural barrier, provided by the history of each place, customs and culture and must be added the language barrier that makes some have more advantages over others. Since children of 6 years old who have never taken a pencil, to children who born with the remote in their hand.

So if we continue to thinking a little, so that all human beings around the world have in common is a brain.

And it's not necessary a brain with high capacities, ultimately education seeks to provide that window of opportunity. Besides the exposure to the environment (including cultural influences) that creates cytoarchitectural differences, and are those cytoarchitectural differences which allow each person to be more suitable for certain tasks (Dzib Goodin, 2011a).

Perhaps the only complication that could impede to learn are those syndromes that are involved in the process of memory, because  is known that are memory and learning are closely linked, but beyond that, all brains, even those effected development disorders can be adapted, but learn in different ways.

From the evolutionary point of view, learning is necessary for the survival of the species and is present in all of them, under the principle of survival of the fittest, so it depends on environmental adaptation and vice versa.

Understanding the brain processes in education, helps to define what and how to teach (Dzib Goodin, 2011b), and allows to see the learner from a different perspective.

So based on this basic principle, including the brain in education, it is possible to set out the principles that shape learning.

In a text written for teachers and parents, I listed how the brain learns, from which it can be said that the brain has the urge to learn. Learning regulates systems even before birth, it's not necessary a school or office hours to learn because this allows adaptation to the needs of the environment and ensures that each generation continue developing with new evolutionary advantages (Dzib Goodin, 2011c).

Learning allows the strengthening of neural networks that permit perpetual motion of new learning. Unlike what many psychologists claimed, only a few systems could have critical moments, such as language, movement, and perhaps to a lesser degree vision and hearing (Roman Carboni, Del Rio Grande, Chapel Maestu and Ortiz, 2006; Gage, 2007, Dehaene, Nakamura, Jobert, Kuroki, Ogawa, and Cohen, 2009), but even for these processes should be considered brain plasticity, which will later accept the creation of new networks that delayed repair functions (Cook, 2010).

If you look at the babies, it is obvious that they make several attempts before achieving perfection of movements or language (Hartshorne, 2009), this is something that has forgotten the formal school, but let us see the fun of learning and the need for repetition. Nothing is more gratifying to see the kids doing the same actions over and over again, and as adult e can get  bored, while children ask: do it again and again!, And have you noticed how much children  enjoy doing things?, that's why I think this is another principle of the brain: repetition and joy.

In addition, the brain learns from mistakes, if taught how, of course, even if the mistake is trying to solve an addition, collapsing a multi-million dollar company or mislead the recipient of an email, parses the string of events held, going about our steps and seeks to correct mistakes by learning from them (Roediger III, and Finn, 2010).

And once the brain learns something, will enjoy it and that will cause pleasure or reward immediate as possible, it will to do it again and again and again. This is how persons develop the skill or talent, the continued development of an activity, which will make a super specialized neural network (Forget, Buiatti and Dehaene, 2009). But remember that the geniuses in any area not done in a day, the real experts need many years.

My idea of education see it as try to install a software on any gadget, if the software does not match the system requirements, it is likely that this may not work properly, this has happened to educational models prevailing as it has been said at many educational forums. I think that formal education has pushed their applications regardless of what the system itself can do. Above all, has not taken into account that the system itself is regulated and is able to improve any program.

It is therefore in this sense that the software can not be used in the same way in all alike, every brain is different connections, some more specialized than others (Haier, 2009), but if you want all the same opportunities , you should look at that as an advantage, and then create a flexible software. As well as creating applications for various devices, versions 1, 2, N and N +1 ... Why not create flexible educational proposals?, Especially taking into account the culture, technological advances and innovations. In less than a decade we have moved from laptops to tablets and books to read hypertext. Culture evolves, brain evolves; why is education so boring?.

If you want to create an application of this magnitude, then I think I should ask the question: what is the goal of this application?. It certainly is not the speech that was sold to my generation: if you go to school will be a successful professional and you can make money and be better than your parents. Evolutionarily each new generation will be better than their ancestors (Fox, 2011).

What do we wish at the end of so many years of education?, Do we wish everyone thinking exactly the same?, Well, if you look at successful people, it seems a famous is anyone who dares to break the mold, and all admire him or her for doing things that nobody else can not do, a baseball player, a painter, a musician, a computer whiz or business ... all of them went beyond and against the system.

Then school needs to be creative and diversify. Each educational system is good for a limited group of people that fit the same, but there's a group that does not, and they need another program (Barber and Mourshed, 2007).

Formal education can call them stupid or odd, in a sense they are, but there are examples which show an extraordinary talent that was misunderstood. This is because creativity is an important ingredient in education (Robinson, 2006).

And be creative applies to use  tools, specially talking  about the current  technological age and the worldwide commitment to the use of tablets and Smartphone, but we can not forget the economic and cultural differences. What is the advantage of these tools? They are intuitive. Does not take much to learn to use and each generation of devices are based on brain function, and I think here can mention only some of its features:

They are based on visual processing, are increasingly attractive, sharper images, sound better, more friendly, and do not need a course of 40 hours to use a tablet, as soon as you open the box,  and it jumps almost saying, use me, let's work and learn!.

They are visuopropioceptives, where I put my finger I have what I want, they are lightweight and do not I have to get home to work, technically they in in my pocket... I carry it everywhere, just like any brain, goes everywhere with me, and also have very good ability to memory.

The advantage of technological tools moreover, it's adding the fact  you no longer dependent on a special platform to teach, the most commonly used, Facebook is great for teaching on line and now has built Skype; Google +  allows the use of multiple cameras for video conferences, it have enough room for internet use while you are giving a class ... if education of the future will use more and more often these items it will be excited, but at the same time, it can be a  bet IF think about use  only gadgets and it would be closing the door to creativity and only turning  the current coin.

First, we must think about the economic and language barrier, that is why gadgets can not be considered as the only options, and it makes sense to use the tools that each brain has at hand from the culture, and thus will be more creative, successful and adapted. more experiences, more neural networks. Simple!.

So, we can not forget the environment, because that is where decisions are made, they learn ethical systems (Blanchette and Richards, 2010), is the civilization where the brain has evolved, and is ultimately who we want to teach (Dehaene, 2009).

And now here we come: what to teach?. I am convinced that it is possible to teach anything with the right strategy, from quantum physics to how to get to the moon or being the best driver of the world. Education should not only bet on science, or formal education, the brain learns from everywhere, learn how to break security systems, or  the law, IF it is assumed that this is not learned in school, how is that someone manages to construct an algorithm for something so complex?, because the brain is much more intelligent than the school has believed.

Like learning math, that persons  think is one of the  more complex learning so far, with  a special language, and it has been able to create a specific space in the brain (Dehaene, 1999), the brain can reconnect existing networks and to continue learning, and creating and modifying them. It is able to create a triangular circle, or a colorful painting in black and white. It is creative and likes to be. There is nothing better than when someone call us the best at something, anything, from the best runner, even the best in physics, or the best craftsman. That makes us feel good!.

I think the goal of education should be to help each one to find for that which every one is good, the younger that goal is reached, the better value is the talent and will be more helpful to society.

Accept that there are other talents and tell to each child: YES, YOU CAN!, I hope it can be the way to school in the future, even when the system itself can have flawed. Finally accept that not everyone can learn the same way, it will open doors to children that every day work hard trying to adapt their skills to the demands of school (Fisher, 2010).

Finally, if we see how  other species and children learn before going to school, open our eyes to accept that learning is enjoyable, and that the more is seen as a game, is better accepted (Tullis, 2011). Hence it is explained why videogames can capture children minds, but if we look closely, they are teaching things that do matter for the school.

For example, the relationship visuospatial, visuo motor process for reading and writing, teaching strategies, metacognitive processes, and I can easily go on and on ...

The school of the future should recognize that the first point is to understand the brain, which provides its services for everything and, it will find a cure for brain diseases for future generations, it will reorganize the world economy or, it will let me see a movie from the comfort of my home, with just one click

And of course, no everyone can be famous actors or musicians, but if you enjoy doing what is being done, that is natural and then it lets exploit the full potential of each person, would not be worth it to educate?.

Alma Dzib Goodin

If you would like to know more about my writing you can visit my web site:
http://www.almadzib.com

Image 3D: Juan Conde Tovany

REFERENCES

Barber, M. and Mourshed, M. (2007) How the world’s best performance school system come out on top. McKinsey & Company. USA.

Blanchette, I. and Richards, A. (2010) The influence of affect o higher level cognition: A review of research on interpretation, judgment, decision making and reasoning. Cognition & Emotion. 24 (4) 561-595.

Carboni Román, A., Del Rio Grande, D., Capilla, A., Maestú, F. y  Ortíz, T. (2006) Bases neurobiológicas de las dificultades de aprendizaje. Rev Neurol. 42 (Supl 2) S171-S175.

Cook, G. (2010) The brain and the written word. Scientific American Mind. 21 (1) 62-65.

Dehaene, S. (1999) The number sense: how mind creates mathematics. Oxford University Press. USA.

Dehaene, S. (2009) Reading in the brain: The science and evolution of a human invention. Viking Adult: Penguin Group. USA.

Dehaene, S., Nakamura, K., Jobert, A., Kuroki, C., Ogawa, S. and Cohen, L. (2009) Why do children make mirror errors in reading? Neural correlates of mirror invariance in the visual word form area. Neuroimage. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.09.024

Dzib Goodin, A (2011c) How do we learn?.  Disponible en red: http://education50.com/blog/black-list-of-colors/how-do-we-learn.

Dzib Goodin, A. (2011a) The search for talent: the Holy Grial disponible en red: http://talkingaboutneurocognitionandlearning.blogspot.com/.

Dzib Goodin, A. (2011b) Brain differences: the black hole of formal education. Disponible en red: http://talkingaboutneurocognitionandlearning.blogspot.com/2011/09/brain-differences-black-hole-of-formal.html.

Fisher, B. (2010) A sensory fix for problems in school. Scientific American Mind. 21 (1) 32-37.

Forget, J., Buiatti, M. and Dehaene, S. (2009) Temporal integration in visual word recognition. Journal of cognitive neuroscience. 1 (2) 1-15.

Fox, D. (2011) The limits of intelligence. Scientific American. 305 (1) 36- 43.

Gage, FH. (2007) Brain, repair yourself. En Floyd  E, Bloom. The best of the brain from Scientif American: Mind matter and tomorrow’s brain. Dana Press. US.

Haier, R. (2009) What does a smart brain look like?. Scientific American Mind. 20 (6) 26-33.

Hartshorne, J. (2009) Why don’t babies talk like adults? Scientific American Mind. 20 (5) 59 – 61.

http://www.learningwithoutfrontiers.com/

Robinson, K. (2006) TED: Schools and creativity. Disponible en red: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPB-41q97zg&context=C3d21048ADOEgsToPDskLALkSRPqGf5rRgHmuJPYd2

Roediger III, HL. and Finn, B. (2010) The pluses of getting wrong.  Scientific American Mind. 21 (1) 38-41.

Tullis, P. (2011) Preeschool tests take time away from play and learning. Scientific American Mind. 22 (6) 26-29.

World Economic Forum (2011) Latin American economies still lag behind in leveraging ICT despite making progress, according to new global technology report. Disponible en red: http://www.weforum.org/news/latin-american-economies-still-lag-behind-leveraging-ict-despite-making-progress-according-new.

The difficulties with the process of reading and writing

The door to culture and knowledge, without any doubt, goes hand by hand with reading and writing. However, because they are not part of the genetic package, unlike language and calculation, reading and writing depend on interactions with the environment to a better development (Dzib Goodin, 2011a).

The term used to refer to difficulties in the acquisition and development of process of reading and writing, has traditionally been dyslexia. which is a word that Etymologically comes from the Greek  and means difficulty or abnormality in speech or diction (Idiazábal Saperas Aletxa and Rodriguez, 2008) and has been attributed to the impossibility of reading comprehension, and it's applied to the lack of acquisition of writing too (Pallares Artigas, 2002).

It is worth mentioning that the term does not describe anything beyond a professional term, because it can not describe that part of the acquisition or consolidation that is not developing correctly. Traditional education and educational psychology, under the model to describe problems in the student away from working with the difficulties, highlights the problems without recognizing the chain of events involved.

That's why the neurocognitive view, seeks to describe the process, recognizing the necessary chain of events to consolidate the task, either reading or writing. But to speak of the difficulties in acquisition, it's worth a journey through the process.

Acquisition Process

It is a fact that both reading and writing are linked to language, but the difference is that there is no a genetic need of them, so they depend on the environmental shaping (Dzib Goodin, 2011B) and as mentioned Dehaene is linked to the culture (cited in Cook, 2010).

Based on this idea, reading and writing are based on written words, which are the graphical representation of speech sounds (Hickok, Bellugi and Klima, 2007).

The language-specific brain structures have developed from evolutionary processes that begin at least from the first Homo sapiens, while writing, as cultural necessity, has accompanied the man from the caves, drawing representations of events, but it was not until the development of printing which is positioned as a cultural asset. To writing became necessary to learn to reading, which, however, was not a skill available to everybody, until it appeared  school to consolidate it because of this, the brain has not required structures  genetically available  to develop them.

That's the reason reading and writing use part of language structures like the primarily region persilviana at the left hemisphere, area temporoparietooccipital, the set of mirror neurons and the cerebellum (Viñals, Duque Vega and Alvarez, 2003; Idiazábal Saperas Aletxa and Rodriguez, 2008; Hickok, 2010) .

But  there are more regions involved to create the relationship between the sound of a letter, known as phoneme and its graphical representation, called grapheme, for this, since is necessary an identification of speech sounds and recognition of the shapes of each grapheme and differentiation between them (Fisher, 2010; Cook, 2010).

The need for emotional understanding of the writing or reading, involving the corpus callosum in the process, this is because language in itself implies an intention that must be recognized and expressed graphically.

The recognition of sound involved into the language of course give it meaning. This is because the brain analyzes the sound differently (understood as any wave propagation through a medium), identifying differences between language, music and noise (Dzib Goodin, 2011b).

In this sense the words are recognized as a sequence of sounds that can be represented through limited sequences separated by spaces. To this is added the punctuation and all that make the written word (Carboni Roman, Rio Grande, Chapel, Maestu and Ortiz, 2006). Going from sound to meaning implies, however, neural networking to make each sound recognizable, which is why babies go from repeat guttural sounds, sporadic understandable language, words and eventually sentences.

The next step is to convert sounds into letters. This process is inherent in writing and requires two basic principles: first visual analysis of the shape of each letter and make the distinction between them because one p is not equal to a one q, and a v is not equal to one r. And, on the other hand, the motor recognition to process visual (eyes move to recognize the differences in shape) and in the case of writing, is the movement on the line depending on the differential point while performance (Sánchez, Wheel and Orrantia, 1989).

For an adult brain, with sufficient functional neural networks, the statement seems silly, but for a developing brain that gradually creates cognitive frame is a huge challenge. That's why at first, it's normal for the system to have mistakes, that psychologists and teachers call dyslexia, which should not be considered a problem until after the 8 years (Dehaene, Nakamura, Jobert, Kuroki, Ogawa and Cohen, 2010).

Once are made the necessary distinctions between letters, and in this case consider that the English alphabet has 26 uppercase and 26 lowercase letters and two ligatures, and it's necessary to make a difference between them properly, so it will pass to the analysis of the sequence of letters. What sounds make up the word?, Are there spaces between them?, and one more addition, some sounds are necessary to writing, for not for reading like Illinois or Lisle.

This is when the auditory, visual and motor processes are integrated into memory (Greene, 2010) which contributes to strengthening the management of differences of graphemes, and always the motivation is usually added, because as a cultural tool, this process must have a practical to implement brain networks because it works on the principle of cognitive economy.

Once that are  acquired and developed at some level all these  processes, it must be added to the equation, something that psychologists call lexical route, this  consists in the recognition of familiar words like mom and dad, and while reading and writing become simple because they are part of the personal dictionary, and on the other hand, the non-lexical route, which are words that have not been in the personal dictionary or nonsense words, however, may be read or written, when the process is already established (Sanchez, Rueda and Orrantia, 1989).

Once it's acquired all neural networks to hear, see and draw the different letters is then passed to the learning of words that open the door to culture. This door, however, should be widely promoted in the childhood.

So far, it has been done a tour of the normal development and needs to acquire the process of reading and writing, however, difficulties sometimes arise from the consolidation of the same, they are mainly due to two situations to consider: problems neural development and problems of cultural deprivation.

The neuronal difficulties

Brain development begins even before birth, and it can determine difficulties in the processes of language, in this sense, we can mention genetic alterations that result in various neurological conditions, for example Down's syndrome, autism spectrum disorders speacially those with more profound side effects (Etchepareborda and Lazaro Lopez, 2005).

Genetic alterations such as those presented in the FOXP2 gene, which cause malfunctions in the language that, will certainly hinder the acquisition of reading and writing process (Haesler, 2007).

To all this must be added prenatal alterations, for example intake of drugs  during pregnancy, poor  nutrition,  intrauterine trauma, fetal distress and of course, after the birth any kind of brain trauma and there is evidence that epileptic focus can damage surrounding neurons (Lozano, Ramirez and Solis Ostrosky, 2001).

Visospatial disturbances may occur in the parieto-occipital area, or alterations of the corpus callosum that will make difficult the relationship between the two cerebral hemispheres (Etchepareborda and Lazaro Lopez, 2005; Carboni Roman, Rio Grande, Chapel, Maestu and Ortiz, 2006).

Traditionally, psychology has seen brain differences as a way to separate into the continuum of learning and find children with normal learning. But neurocognition reminds that the brain is plastic and capable of creating functional neural networks under the right conditions, that is why is so important to work with the neuro modulation from an early age so that children are able to acquire skills that though not be compared with those of a structural brain damage-free, if they allow management of the environment.

It's also important to be mentioned that while neural networks are consolidated, there will be noticed errors that should be considered as part of the development process. This is obvious especially with the language and calculation. Children are not born speaking as adults, even when there is a pre genetic programming; the system has to make functional application that lets you develop the best way language along with speech

An example of this is the called dyslexia, to which has been associated with errors in mirror writing. Recent studies show that mirror in writing or reading is a normal property of the primary visual system, which only indicates a difficulty in writing if it is prolonged beyond 8 or 10 years (Dehaene, Nakamura, Jobert, Kuroki, Ogawa and Cohen, 2010).

Difficulties due to cultural deprivation

If  anybody  ask an adult over 60 years old  to get an account in facebook using an Ipad and begin tweeting all his or her activity, probably just give up with trying to turn on the gadget.

Something similar happens to a child who has never been submerged in the sea of reading, maybe has never seen a book or taking a pencil. The difficulties in the acquisition process are reflected in a delay in the development of reading and / or writing.

And, of course, it always will have to be considered the strategies of teaching, because traditional school does not encourage a taste for writing and reading, except as part of the compulsory schooling. Culturally, those nations who see these works as a cultural tool, have been more successful in reducing, and in some cases eliminate illiteracy, even can add the bilingualism as a tool, and this produces the appearance of specific neuronal networks strengthened and brings enhanced cognitive development in general (Joss and Virtue, 2010).

The place  where  people proficient in at least two languages, it's far in the case of some countries, specially in Latin America,  if efforts are few  at  the case of the difficulties of reading and writing, bilingualism is an even more distant goal, although it is clear that scientific and cultural borders can open immediately.

If it is assumed that the brain learns from experience, which creates networks that depend on use and management of information, it is able to learn under the right programs, and enjoy achieving goals, there shouldn't be a way to talk of school problems. But educational psychologists have attributed differences of learning as the standard and deciding who is at one side or the other of normal curve of learning, and this labeling has only damaged and many children.

The brain learns under the right programs, building new knowledge on what it knows and under own resources, different in each person. This idea of the problem of school, it's saying to the students he or she is guilty of not learning correctly, eliminating errors of teaching curriculum. This can be very easy and cheap for a nation to accept that their children are the problem.

Children learn by playing, with motivation, trying something again and again and also from their mistakes, rather than from their successes (Roediger III and Finn, 2010). Effective education is notorious when it benefits those who can not do something and the same time that praises the gotten goals if doesn’t matter if needs little or a lot of support. It is worth investing time and patience to open to a child or an adult, the door of the reading and writing. It not only taught to read and write, gives him a different world for the rest of his life.

Under this principle, when we say that a child or adult has a problem in reading and writing and write, it's not enough information. The question are: what is the problem into the process?, What is the chain of events in the process of acquisition or consolidation failing, is it a problem in the auditory recognition of speech sounds?, Maybe is a particular phoneme?, is it about  the speed of reading or writing?, maybe is the recognition of shapes?, can be recognized all the letters?, does student have enough motor skills to take a pencil?, does it have viso-spatial difficulties?, does student confuse the order of the letters?, does student  know the words?, does student understand what is reading?, does student remember what is reading? ... Every problem into the process is different and of course, it can be solved in different way.

There must be added some cultural mistakes such as bedtime reading, which creates a relationship between reading = to sleep (are you still awake reading this text?) Or, if you do not behave you do 20 pages of something, which implies writing = a punishment.

Every time a psycho-educational intervention is successful, is because the learner is encouraged to try to do something that others said would never amount to, it opens the door to:  YES, you can.

Alma Dzib Goodin

If you would like to know more about my writing you can visit my web site:
http://www.almadzib.com

References

Artigas-Pallares J. (2002) Problemas asociados con la dislexia. Rev Neurol. 34 (Supl 1) S7-S13.

Carboni Román, A., del Rio Grande, D., Capilla, A., Maestú, F. y Ortíz, T. (2006) Bases neurobiológicas de las dificultades del aprendizaje. Rev Neurol. 42 (supl 2):  S171-S175.

Dehaenen S, Nakamura K, Jobert A, Kuroki C, Ogawa S y Cohen L. (2010) Why do children make errors reading? Neural correlates of mirror invariance in the visual word form area. Neuroimage . 49. 1837 – 1848.

Dzib Goodin, A. (2011a) La educación como puerta al desarrollo. Disponible en red: http://www.fronterasdelaciencia.com/index.php/comunidad-cientifica/110-la-educacion-como-puerta.

Dzib Goodin, A. (2011b) Introducción a los procesos neurocognitivos del aprendizaje: lenguaje, lectura, escritura y matemáticas. Servicios Editoriales Balám. México. En prensa.

Etchepareborda, MC. y López Lázaro, MJ. (2005) Estructura citoarquitectónica de las áreas del lenguaje. Rev Neurol. 40 (Supl 1).  S103-S106.

Fisher, B. (2010) A sensory fix for problems in school. Scientific American Mind. 21 (1) 32-37.

Greene, AJ. (2010) Making connections: the essence of memory is linking one thought to another. Scientific American Mind. 21 (3) 22-29.

Haesler, S. (2007) Programmed for speech. Scientific American Mind. 18 (3) 67-71.

Hickok G. (2010) The role of mirror neurons in speech perception and action word semantics. Language and cognitive processes. 25 (6): 749-776.

Hickok, G., Bellugi, U. and Klima, E. (2007) Sign language in brain. In Floyd E, Bloom (2007) Best of the brain from Scientific American. Dana Press. USA.

Idiazábal Aletxa, MA y Saperas Rodríguez, M. (2008) Procesamiento auditivo en el trastorno específico del lenguaje. Rev Neurol. 46 (Supl 1) S91- S95.

Joss, LM and Virtue, S. (2010) Hemispheric processing in bilinguals: The role of sharing meanings across languages and sentential constraint. Cognitive Neuroscience.1 (1) 26-32.

Lozano, A., Ramírez, M. y Ostrosky Solis, F. (2001) Neurobiología de la dislexia del desarrollo: una revisión. Rev Neurol. 33 (2): 1-6.

Roediger III, HL. and Finn, B. (2010) The pluses of getting wrong.  Scientific American Mind. 21 (1) 38-41.

Sánchez, E., Rueda MI. Y Orrantia, J. (1989) Estrategias de intervenión para la reeducación de niños con dificultades en el aprendizaje de la lectura y la escritura. Lenguaje y comunicación. 3- 101-111.

Viñals, F., Vega, O. y Alvarez Duque ME. (2003) Aproximación neurocognitiva de las alteraciones de la lecto-escritura como base de los programas de recuperación en pacientes con daño cerebral. Revista Española de Neuropsicología. 5 (3-4) 227-249.

Chronotype and Learning

Learning process is a complex group of factors that depends of genetic and environmental influences, and one of them seems to be the chronotype, which is defined as a propensity of a person to sleep at a particular time during a circadian period.

Even if is usual to believe that habits can make a difference between students, since they learn to adapt their findings from a chronobiology perspective highlight a deeper molecular accent into how can humans can handle changes of light, from a evolutionary point of view. Life on planet in general is sensible to changes called cycles. One of them is known as Circadian rhythms.

Circadian rhythms are approximate 24-h biological cycles that prepares an organism for daily environmental changes, driven by molecular clocks that basically are a trasncriptional-translational feedback mechanism that involves the core clock genes in mammals and it is present in virtually all cells of an organism ¹.

Roenneberg, Kuehnle, Pramstaller, Ricken, Havel, Guth, and Merrow², explain that chronotype “depends on genetic and environmental factors but also on age”, and at the same that some other authors add gender to the landscape ³.

Chronotype changes with age, and some researchers have found systematical differences between children and adolescents, showing that children are early chronotypes and change slowly but progressively until delay and reaching a maximum of diurnal preferences around the age of 20, which suggests the end of adolescence³. However, the chronotype will change again with increasing age.

Adolescents’ circadian clocks typically run late⁴, they love to sleep until late and it’s easy to believe this is related with a crazy nightlife. However, different studies shows that in fact, these diurnal preferences can be something due circadian timing system. One explanation leads to endocrine factors, since hormones begin to run around adolescents systems for example studies how a time of day dependent of growth hormones which reaches its maximum and cortisol a minimum at around 1 am².

These changes are associated with two different situations, one medical and one related with academic performances.

From a medical perspective, aging is associates with sleep problems, including earlier awakening and a decrease of sleep patterns, mainly finding problems to consolidate sleep during the night⁵.

With this is mind is clear it can be explained an academic situation that many students suffer: sleep difficulties affect the way their learnings are consolidated. For example Pincher and Walters⁷, studied the performance of 44 students who had to complete the Watson-Glaser-Critical Thinking Appraisal after either 24 hours of sleep deprivation or approximately 8 hours of sleep. In this study, after completing the cognitive task, participants with sleep deprivation performed significantly worse than the non-deprived participants. Other studies have found very similar results even using different tests^8-12.

All these studies show a relationship between sleep and academic performance and most of studies have focused on medicine students¹² since they have the worst problems about morningness-eveningness so it’s easy to see the influence on learning, particularly of college students.

However, another issue must be add to this puzzle, It seems there is a relationship between age and activities and how they push to persons to create more and more gaps between sleep timing on workdays and weekends which is knows as social jetlag which can be described as the discrepancy between work and free days, this means a difference between social and biological time, leading to a considerable sleep debt ¹⁴.

The term social jetlag was coined in 2006 by researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, who wanted to know the effects caused by differences between person’s internal biological clocks and the social clock time.

This social jetlag has been of course related with poor academic performances, and some studies like the one conduced by Haraszti, Ella, Gyöngyösi, Roenneberg, and Káldi¹⁵ suggests than circadian misalignment can have a significant negative effect on academic performance and they suggest that this is socially enforced.

Considering all these factors, education has much more to considerate for a successful environment to most of students. Late schedules to   older students based on their chronotype, and of course personal habits that can be broken easily with social activities effect how learning can be performance.

References

1.                Harfmann, BD., Schroder, EA., Esser, KA. (2014) Circadian Rhythms, the molecular clock, and skeletal muscle. Journal of Biological Rhythms. doi: 10.1177/0748730414561638

2.   Roenneberg, T., Kuehnle, T., Pramstaller, PP., Ricken, J., Havel, M., Guth, A., Merrow, M. (2004) A marker for the end of adolescence. Current Biology, 14(24) R1038-R1039.

3.   Randle, C. (2010) Age and gender differences in morningness-eveningness during adolescence. Journal of Genetic Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development, 172(3) 302-308.

4.   Van der Vinne, V., Zerbin, G., Siersemat, A., Pieper, A., Merrow, M., Hut, RA., Roenneberg, T., Kantermann, T. (2014) Timing examinations affects school performance differently in early and ate chronotypes. Journal of Biological Rhythms. doi: 10.1177/0748730414564786

5.   Duffy, J., Czeisler, CA. (2002) Age-related change in the relationship between circadian period, circadian phase, and diurnal preference in humans. Neuroscience letters, 318(3) 117-120.

6.   Buboltz, WC., Brown, F., Soper, B. (2001) Sleep habits and patters of college students: A preliminary study. Journal of American College Health, 50(3) 131-135

7.   Pincher, JJ., & Walters, AS. (2007) How sleep deprivation affects psychological variables related to college students’ cognitive performance. Journal of American College Health. 46 (3)121-126.

8.   Curcio, G., Ferrara, M., De Gennaro, L.(2006) Sleep loss, learning capacity and academic performance, Sleep Medicine Reviews.10(5) 323-337.

9.   Woltson, AR., Carskadon, MA. (2003) Understanding adolescent’s sleep patterns and school performance: a critical appraisal. Sleep Medicine Reviews 7(6) 491-506.

10.                Pilcher, J., Ginter, DR., Sadowsky, B. (1997) Sleep quality versus sleep quantity: Relationships between sleep and measures health, well-being and sleepiness in college students.  Journal of Psychosomatic Research. 42(6) 583-596.

11.                Randler, C.,  & Frech, D. (2006) Correlation between morningness-eveningness and final school leaving exams. Biological Rhythm Research, 37(3) 233-239.

12.                Medeiros, ALD., Mendes, DBF., Lima, P., & Araujo, JF. (2001) The relationship between sleep-wake cycle and academic performance in medical students. Biological Rhythm Research, 32(2) 263-270.

13.                Haraszti, RA., Ella, K., Gyöngyösi, N., Roenneberg, T., and Káldi, K. (2014) Social jetlag negatively correlates with academic performance in undergraduates. Chronobiology International, 31(5) 603-612.

14.                Wittman,, M., Dinich, J., Merrow, M., Roenneberg, T. (2006) Social Jetlag: Misalignment of biological and social time. Chronobiology international, 23(2) 497-509.

15.                Haraszti, RA., Ella, K., Gyöngyösi, N., Roenneberg, T., and Káldi, K. (2014) Social jetlag negatively correlates with academic performance in undergraduates. Chronobiology International, 31(5) 603-612.

 Note: All images were taken from internet