Impressions: Proust & the Squid by Maryanne Wolf

Book Category: Adult Non-fiction

On the reading process:

- I started reading (listening to) this sometime in December. Loved listening to the history of the development of writing, along with Socrates' thoughts on how it would corrupt the learning experience, because if students were unguided as they acquired knowledge, they would be vulnerable to solitary uncritical thinking.
- Then there was a section about reading to children and I felt incredibly guilty about not reading *more* to my children when they were very little. I could see the clear connection between reading to our children, its importance to fluency and comprehension. I stopped reading this for a week or two. I felt soooo guilty. But I did the best I could when they were little. We had so many books! They are late teenagers now. They are not big readers, that's my regret, inasmuch as it's my fault. But is it? They love video games. :D
- I came back to this book, though. There was a section before the very end, when it got into statistics of reading problems or... parts of the brain or... I'm not sure. I had a hard time following it.
- But then it finished with a clear (to me) explanation about the way dyslexic brains have an alternate pathway for reading. I love how our brains make paths to work things out. So cool.

My knowledge takeaways:

- our brains aren't naturally adapted to reading, not like how we walk and talk etc when things go as expected.
- Reading is a COMPLICATED set of interconnected brain functions
- Reading works differently based on the language/written format. Such as: pictographic, logographic, or alphabets.
- Even with languages that use alphabets, there's a difference between reading acquisition when the spellings are consistent vs the inconsistency of (for example) English.
- There's more reading comprehension for dyslexic people in consistent languages, because it's faster to "translate" the marks into sounds and meaning than in inconsistent languages. Therefore, there's more time to comprehend what's being read.
- It's all about the TIME. The time it takes to read, those moments of going from word to word, for the fluent reader, there is time to develop one's own thoughts, or to join in the author's imagination, etc etc- the more fluent we are as readers, the more we can immerse in the experience of reading, going into the world the author is presenting to us.
- That would be scary to Socrates. haha

Things that stuck with me.
Not formatted like a normal review.
Audiobook.
If I am wrong on anything, let me know!