Ricco, a 9-year old border collie residing in Germany, has a 200-word vocabulary verified by Dr. Julia Fischer, Max Planck Institute, Leipzig, German.

The intriguing element is the principle of Fast-Mapping, a process Ricco has in common with Homo sapiens. Both can often internalize the meaning of a new word after a single-exposure.

Google: the journal, Science 6.11.04 and still cited to date.

Consider the corollary, you do not have own the power of human language to understand. Included in Fast-Mapping are apes, chimpanzees, dolphins, sea-lions and parrots. Makes you almost question the NRA mission and the fact we execute 9 million homeless dogs and cats in the U.S. annually. But onward.

How Your Brain Does The Reading Trick

The English language has 44 sounds and 26 letters, right? There are 20 vowels and 24 consonant phonemes, how do you do reading with just 26 letters?

Spelling is a lousy guide to English pronunciation for four smart reasons:

a)Many letters have multiple sounds and it's confusing
b)Certain letters appear but are silent
c)Some syllables spellings are not pronounced
d)Certain sounds use different letters not just one.

N.B. Look at the GH in Thought-Enough-Ghost. Ike and Mike, they look alike, but they aint.

Decoding and Comprehension

Isn't reading just two separate skills, decoding letters and words, and semantic, getting the meaning of the words?

Decoding requires phonemic awareness: knowing the sounds the letters stand for. Comprehension is based on experience and your hippocampus previously laying down long-term memories

Think of it as OverLearning, the process of automatically (auto-pilot) knowing how to spell C-a-t without conscious analysis, and then seeing mental images associated with the definition of the word. You require both Phonetics and the Look-Say for instant recognition.

Brain Structures For Reading

Kids learn to read activating (sound-out words) then using their ParietoTemporal Cortex; when they got it down to a science, the brain shifts to using their OccipitoTemporal Cortex. How do we know? fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance

Imagery.

The OTC triggers the sounds and meaning on seeing the words in print. Google: Dr. Ellen McHugh, Dyslexia Tutor.

Broca Area

Our kind (priests and nobility) have been writing and reading for 6 thousand years.

The other 99% began reading with Johannes Gutenberg's printing system after 1450; not that long ago.

Yet scientists date evolutionary human speech 400,000 years ago. Experts stipulate the Neanderthals could communicate about 30,000 years ago. My own research dates modern speech at a more recent 10,000 years. Grunts do not count.

Paul Broca, French scientist in 1861 pointed to a tiny structure of the brain as responsible for the production of human speech (vocal cords, tongue, lips and larynx). It is still called the Broca Area.

Later Carl Wernicke, German scientist added a brain structure (1874) that processed human comprehension and helped Broca with speech production. It is called the Broca Area.

Two Key Facts

Both the Broca and Wernicke areas occur only in your left-hemisphere (specialization), and process the regulation of your sequence of sounds, in addition to production of individual sounds.

Speech is a complex sequence of movements of lips, tongue and vocal cords, even though it appears to us as baby-easy and on auto-pilot.

Weird

Your left (brain) PFC (PreFrontal cortex), the specialist in language, is the seat of positive emotions like happiness and pleasure. Get this, your right (brain) PFC is the repository of negative emotions like stress, (fight-or-flight syndrome) anxiety, fear and anger. Left-brain produces Adrenaline (Epinephrine), and activates your

Sympathetic Nervous System.

Your right-hemisphere uses the neurotransmitter Acetylcholine, to trigger your ParaSympathetic Nervous System to induce relaxation and inhibit aggression.

Some day when we have time you will discover how singing the song, B.I.N.G.O. (There was a farmer who had a dog (not Ricco) and Bingo was his name-o) can inhibit negative emotions from your right-hemisphere and produce endorphins of pleasure. It works with kids and adults.

Endwords

Your brain invented the use of division of labor to activate different brain structures for the complex tasks of seeing, reading and comprehension.

Scientists in 2007 admit to having a superficial understanding of the reading process. Some experts posit 19 different brain areas working simultaneously for your ability to read (decode), and retrieve long-term memories.

Many of you know the Cerebellum controls your eye-movements in reading.

Google: Peripheral Vision, Foveal Vision and saccades.

We commend the good work of the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, and Sebastian Wren, on the complex reading process.

Finally, we suggest tripling your learning skills, and doubling long-term memory.

There is scientific evidence to sustain the principle, use-it-or-lose-it with regard to your brain circuitry. Watching your computer screen, TV and video games do not substitute for the benefits of the physical-mental process of reading.

Recent research indicates a reduction of up to 50% in the incidence of Alzheimer Disease occurring in seniors who actively use their cognitive skills.

See ya, and S.D.S.N (Start Doing Something Now!)

copyright 2007

H. Bernard Wechsler
www.speedlearning.org
hbw@speedlearning.org

Published August 6, 2007