The Distributed Neural Systems of Reading

• In Event: Decades of Reading Research: Challenging the Science of Reading

Abstract

Purposes
Research suggests that as children learn to read, their brain develops reading networks that connect visual images (e.g., letters, words) to meaning. Over time, these networks become increasingly tuned to recognize and process written words (Schlaggar & McCandliss, 2007). Neuroscientists have mapped reading networks that involve transfers of information across brain regions (Friederici & Gierhan, 2013). The distributed nature of these networks supports understandings of reading as multifaceted and challenges depictions of reading as a narrow and singular process.

Perspective
We draw on neuroscience that has mapped reading networks involving transfers of information across brain regions (Friederici & Gierhan, 2013). For example, Yu et al. (2018) identified anatomical overlap between semantic and phonological subnetworks that activate phonological processing, word recognition, and semantic processing through continuous and reciprocal interactions between phonological and semantic representations. Phonological analysis and decoding processes are also distributed across brain regions (See Author 1 et al., 2020). This research suggests that skilled readers activate multiple neural regions as they access efficient processes for reading texts. Phonological processing, visual word form processing, and semantic processing extend across these distributed neural networks (Author 2 & colleague, 2023).

Methodology, Evidence Base, and Data Analysis
We review a vast range of scholarship related to neuroscience and reading. Drawing on literature reviews and empirical research related to reading and neuroscience, and collaborations with colleagues with expertise in neuroscience, we present a confluence of evidence that reading processes are not located in one particular area of the brain.

Findings
Our review of neurological research suggests that processes associated with reading are distributed across the brain (see Table 1). For example, Yu et al. (2018) identified an anatomical overlap between semantic and phonological subnetworks that activate phonological processing, word recognition, and semantic processing through continuous and reciprocal interactions between phonological and semantic representations. Importantly, meaning-making systems alone occupy significant portions of the cortex, which receive not only text dependent meanings but also multimodal input from the child’s lived experiences (Binder, Desai, Graves, & Conant, 2009). A large network of regions are involved in knowledge-based monitoring during reading, a smaller network is involved in text-based monitoring (van Moort, et al., 2020). As children learn to read, they are increasingly able to coordinate and integrate multiple reading processes as they draw on and build interconnected neural networks that link areas of the brain. By about fourth grade, reading networks become more efficient and automatic, leading to fluent reading (Coch & Holcomb, 2003).

Scholarly Significance
Because reading involves networked systems, it is essential that educators understand what is at stake when special interest groups and legislators attempt to promote singular approaches to teaching reading. Cueing systems are simply labels for what the brain does during reading and teachers must work to develop children’s reading networks. Teachers, parents, administrators, and legislators must understand how the reading brain uses multiple sources of information (e.g., phonetic, orthographic, semantic, syntactic). Anything else is not science based.

Author

• Lucy K. Spence, University of South Carolina