How the Brain Learns to Read

What must the brain learn in order to read effectively? What has research revealed about phonics and whole language approaches to reading instruction? Arm yourself with the most relevant neuroscientific information available and start your students down a lifelong path as successful readers.

No skill is more fundamental to our students’ education than reading. And no recent book has done more to advance our understanding of the neuroscience behind this so-critical skill than David Sousa’s How the Brain Learns to Read. To tens of thousands of educators, Sousa revealed  at last how exactly young brains learn to make sense of printed language and how you can use that information to reach students of all ages and skill levels. Best-selling author David Sousa explores source material on brain research and provides scores of practical reading strategies for the K-12 classroom, complete with relevant brain diagrams and informative tables.

With so much more to be shared, this second edition has been revised and updated to show what the ever-growing body of research looks like in an entirely new learning climate. Top among the many new features are:

• Correlations to Common Core State Standards in Literacy and English/Language Arts
• A new chapter on how to teach for comprehension
• Much more on helping older struggling readers master subject-area content
• Ways to tailor strategies to the unique needs of students with dyslexia and other reading difficulties, including those receiving interventions in an RTI or MTSS model
• Key links between how the brain learns spoken and written language

No school can afford to teach reading skills from an outdated knowledge base. With this new edition of David Sousa’s modern classic, you can ensure a brighter future for your students, on the page, in the classroom, and beyond.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Learning Spoken Language
2. Learning to Read
3. Teaching Reading for Encoding and Decoding
4. Teaching Reading for Comprehension
5. Recognizing Reading Problems
6. Overcoming Reading Problems
7. Reading in the Content Areas
8. Putting it All Together

Glossary

References

Resources

"How the Brain Learns to Read makes the important connections between reading and brain research accessible for teachers and parents. It is definitely a book that I will recommend to teachers and my undergraduate and graduate students"
- Diane Barone, Professor of Literary Studies, University of Nevada

"How the Brain Learns to Read is a comprehensive, teacher-friendly book. Sousa not only clarifies the complex act of reading, he provides practical 'use-tomorrow' strategies and guidelines for designing a successful reading program. This book makes a significant contribution to the field. I highly recommend it."
- Pat Wolfe, Author, Building the Reading Brain, PreK-3