BBC Learnings · Section 20

How reading shapes your brain

Now Bekkah, do you read a lot? I don't read often.

Level: B1 · 100 sentences

Transcript

  1. Now Bekkah, do you read a lot?
  2. I don't read often.
  3. I just feel like I don't have the time, Georgie.
  4. How about yourself?
  5. I would love to read more, but I
  6. don't read very much at the moment.
  7. I read mostly before bed because I feel
  8. like it helps me relax and go to sleep.
  9. And today we're talking all about reading.
  10. We'll be hearing from some experts
  11. about how reading can change our brains.
  12. And as usual, we'll be learning some useful new words and phrases.
  13. Let's start with a quiz question.
  14. The longest novel in the world is widely thought
  15. to be by French author Marcel Proust. A book...
  16. which when translated into English means Remembrance of Things Past,
  17. but how many words does the book contain?
  18. Is it a 130,000, b 1.3 million or c 13 million?
  19. Okay, the longest novel in the world, I still
  20. think 13 million words sounds too many, so I'm
  21. gonna go with b 1.3 million. All right, we'll
  22. find out at the end of the program. Now,
  23. we might think of reading as like speaking.
  24. We're born with the potential to do it,
  25. and then we learn. It's natural.
  26. If something is natural, it's something
  27. you were born with or that comes from nature.
  28. But Marianne Wolfe, author of the book
  29. Reader Come Home, says that this isn't true.
  30. We think of language as natural,
  31. and reading is written language, so it must be natural.
  32. But it isn't.
  33. It isn't natural at all. Scientific studies suggest that when we're born,
  34. our brains already have the networks that allow our eyes
  35. to see and our vocal cords to produce sounds,
  36. but not with the pathways we need to read.
  37. Let's hear more from psychologist and neuroscientist Rebecca Gottlieb,
  38. speaking to the BBC World Service.
  39. From an evolutionary timescale, our brain hasn't
  40. had enough time to develop a dedicated reading brain.
  41. And so to build a reading brain network,
  42. we co-op parts of the brain involved in vision
  43. and auditory processing and language and attention and affect.
  44. Reading is really a whole brain process.
  45. It involves activation in all four lobes of the cortex,
  46. the process of developing a reading brain.
  47. Alters everything from brain activity to brain structure and brain connectivity.
  48. The power of deep reading is really fundamental to our humanity.
  49. When we read deeply, we change our brains
  50. and we change who we are. Rebecca says
  51. that our brains haven't evolved to include a dedicated reading brain.
  52. Dedicated here means designed and used for one particular purpose.
  53. So, because we don't have a part
  54. of the brain designed specifically for reading,
  55. when we learn to read, we co-opt other parts of the brain.
  56. Co-opt here means to include someone
  57. or something, often against their will. Right.
  58. Learning to read means using lots of different parts
  59. of the brain that are designed for other things,
  60. and this changes our brain structure compared
  61. to someone who hasn't learned to read.
  62. And the language we read also shapes our brain.
  63. Chinese characters, for example, use symbols instead of letters
  64. of the alphabet to represent words and ideas.
  65. Research suggests that learning to read these symbols activates
  66. different areas of the brain to reading an alphabet-based system.
  67. Scientists studied a bilingual man
  68. who could read and speak Chinese and English.
  69. The man suffered a stroke which affected parts of his brain,
  70. including his ability to read Chinese.
  71. But amazingly, he was still able to read English.
  72. Marianne Wolfe explains more to the BBC World Service.
  73. It's a beautiful example of how the brain's circuit
  74. reflects the requirements of Chinese, which inevitably means more visual memory
  75. and visual processing of those beautifully intricate symbols or characters.
  76. Marianne says that the brain circuit
  77. is shaped by learning to read Chinese.
  78. A circuit is a system of connections.
  79. The visual qualities of Chinese symbols inevitably
  80. mean more visual areas of the brain are developed.
  81. Inevitably means in a way that cannot be stopped or avoided.
  82. Marianne describes the symbolic Chinese characters as beautifully intricate.
  83. If something is intricate, it has lots of detail.
  84. And something which also has lots of detail,
  85. or certainly lots of words, I asked you, Georgie,
  86. how many words are in Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past?
  87. I said 1.3 million. And you were correct! Yay!
  88. The book also contains lots of very long sentences,
  89. including one with over 900 words.
  90. One sentence with 900 words, that is a lot.
  91. Okay, it's time to recap the language
  92. we learned during this program, starting with natural,
  93. which describes something you were born with or that comes from nature.
  94. Dedicated can describe something that is designed
  95. and used for one particular purpose.
  96. If you co-opt someone or something, you involve them,
  97. sometimes against their will. A circuit is a system
  98. of connections, for example, in the brain.
  99. Inevitably means in a way that cannot be stopped or avoided.
  100. And intricate describes something which has lots of detail.