By: Roxanne F. Hudson, Leslie High, and Stephanie Al Otaiba - http://www.ldonline.org/article/14907/

What areas of the brain relate to language and reading?
The human brain is a complex organ that has many different functions. It controls the body and receives, analyzes, and stores information.

The brain can be divided down the middle lengthwise into a right and a left hemisphere. Most of the areas responsible for speech, language processing, and reading are in the left hemisphere, and for this reason we will focus all of our descriptions and figures on the left side of the brain. Within each hemisphere, we find the following four brain lobes (see Figure 1).

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By: Anahad O'Connor NYT - http://www.brain.hku.hk

Reading may be a uniquely human talent, but it is not an innate skill.
Writing systems differ vastly from one culture to the next. Chinese, for example, is composed of thousands of logographic symbols, while English has a mere 26 alphabetical building blocks.
A study suggests that the biology underlying reading disorders may also vary by culture. Chinese speakers who suffer from dyslexia, the study found, have different brain abnormalities than dyslexic English speakers. The report was published in the journal Nature.

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By: Roxanne F. Hudson, Leslie High, and Stephanie Al Otaiba - http://www.ldonline.org/article/14907/

Important considerations to keep in mind about the brain research

While research advances have allowed us to look more closely within the brain for the first time and revealed important information about how and where we think during reading, there are important considerations that must be remembered.

One is that with the exception of the research by B.E. Shaywitz, S. Shaywitz, and their colleagues, the sample sizes in each study are very small. The evidence from these small studies is converging into results that are reliable, but the results may change as more and more participants are included in the research base. This is especially true with children where both the number of studies and the sample sizes are quite small.

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By: Bob Cunningham, Understood - http://www.readingrockets.org

Talking to your child’s teacher about dyslexia is the best way for her to understand your child’s challenges, strengths and needs. Here are eight tips to help you have productive conversations.

Make an appointment

Teachers’ workdays are jam-packed. Rather than catching your child’s teacher in the hallway before or after school, schedule a 15- to 20-minute appointment. That’s typically enough time to have a productive talk. It’s also short enough that the teacher won’t be worried that it’s taking up too much of her day.

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