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A new speed-reading app, Spritz, premiered in March 2014. Its makers claim that Spritz allows users to read at staggeringly high rates of speed: 600 or even 1,000 words per minute. (The average college graduate reads at a rate of about 300 words per minute.) Spritz can do this, they say, by circumventing the limitations imposed by our visual system. The author of this article argues that your brain has an even more superior "app": expertise, which creates a happy balance between speed and comprehension. In their forthcoming book, Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, researchers Henry Roediger III and Mark McDaniel (along with writer Peter Brown) liken expertise to a "brain app" that makes reading and other kinds of intellectual activity proceed more efficiently and effectively. In the minds of experts, the authors explain, "a complex set of interrelated ideas" has "fused into a meaningful whole." The mental "chunking" that an expert - someone deeply familiar with the subject she's reading about - can do gives her a decided speed and comprehension advantage over someone who is new to the material, for whom every fact and idea encountered in the text is a separate piece of information yet to be absorbed and connected. People reading within their domain of expertise have lots of related vocabulary and background knowledge, both of which allow them to steam along at full speed while novices stop, start, and re-read, struggling with unfamiliar words and concepts. Deep knowledge of what we're reading about propels the reading process in other ways as well. As we read, we're constantly building and updating a mental model of what's going on in the text, elaborating what we've read already and anticipating what will come next. A reader who is an expert in the subject he's reading about will make more detailed and accurate predictions of what upcoming sentences and paragraphs will contain, allowing him to read quickly while filling in his alrea

How exactly does the technology we use to read change the way we read? How reading on screens differs from reading on paper is relevant not just to the youngest among us, but to just about everyone who reads-to anyone who routinely switches between working long hours in front of a computer at the office and leisurely reading paper magazines and books at home; to people who have embraced e-readers for their convenience and portability, but admit that for some reason they still prefer reading on paper; and to those who have already vowed to forgo tree pulp entirely. As digital texts and technologies become more prevalent, we gain new and more mobile ways of reading-but are we still reading as attentively and thoroughly? How do our brains respond differently to onscreen text than to words on paper? Should we be worried about dividing our attention between pixels and ink or is the validity of such concerns paper-thin?

Article explores the philosophical battle between those who believe in leveled reading--adjusting the difficulty of text to suit the ability of the reader--and those who emphasize the importance of "challenge" by having all students grapple with the same "complex texts." Leveled reading has become increasingly easier with the advent of technology. New-generation leveling tools like Newsela allow every student to read the same story, albeit at varying levels of complexity. "This facilitates the social learning that happens when students engage in a shared discussion of the text," Cogan-Drew notes. Second, digital reading programs can make leveling more discreet, preventing students from being teased or stigmatized for reading at a lower level. Compared to the large numbers emblazoned on the covers of many leveled-reader print books, the computerized versions call far less attention to the degree of competency of their users. At the same time, students using these programs are often given the option of dialing up or down their reading level themselves, supporting the development of their "metacognition," or awareness of their own cognitive abilities. Defenders of leveled reading and the champions of complex texts may share more common ground than they realize, however. Both agree that to become fluent readers, students must read a lot on their own-and such independent reading calls for not-too-easy, not-too-hard selections that look a lot like leveled reading. Meanwhile, both sides also concur that students should be asked to wrestle at times with more challenging texts-but in the classroom, where teachers are available to offer help and head off discouragement.

While this article primarily addresses the phenomenon of dysmusia, difficulty in reading music, it also talks about the cognitive underpinnings of music reading. In the brain, reading music is a widespread, multi-modal activity, meaning that many different areas of the brain are involved at the same time. It includes motor, visual, auditory, audiovisual, somatosensory, parietal and frontal areas in both hemispheres and the cerebellum - making music reading truly a whole brain activity. With training, the neural network strengthens. Even reading a single pitch activates this widespread network in musicians. The article also reiterates a pattern that researchers are finding: while text and music reading share some networks, they are largely independent. The pattern of activation for reading musical symbols and letters is different across the brain. Scientists have determined this via studies of patients with limited brain damage, as brain injury impaired reading of one coding system but spared the other.

Across the workld, girls routinely outstrip boys at reading. In two of the largest studies ever conducted into the reading habits of children in the United Kingdom, Keith Topping-a professor of educational and social research at Scotland's University of Dundee-found that boys dedicate less time than girls to processing words, that they're more prone to skipping passages or entire sections, and that they frequently choose books that are beneath their reading levels. "Girls tend to do almost everything more thoroughly than boys," Topping told me over email, while conversely boys are "more careless about some, if not most, school subjects." And notably, as countless studies have shown, girls are also more likely to read for pleasure. The literacy gap also produces disparities in educational achievement overall. The disparity, researchers believe, is not rooted in biology, as the brain is a unisex organ; most gender differences are mostly a result of socialization. Boys tend to be more vulnerable than girls to peer pressure, and that could discourage them from activities like reading that are perceived to be "uncool." David Reilly, a psychologist, points to the stereotype that liking and excelling at reading is a feminine trait. He suggested that psychological factors-like girls' tendency to develop self-awareness and relationship skills earlier in life than boys-could play a role in the disparity, too, while also explaining why boys often struggle to cultivate a love of reading. "Give boys the right literature, that appeals to their tastes and interests, and you can quickly see changes in reading attitudes," he says, citing comic books as an example.

This is a great site for getting an idea of what colleges are looking for in an essay. My idea of a good college essay changed after reading the top voted college essay.

The top essay was a very descriptive piece. It sounded like a short story, and I didn't know you could write about those kind of topics on a college essay. This site really helps me get a better idea of what an essay should look like when the time comes to submit one.

It really helps to be able to read examples of good college essays. It gives you an idea of not only what to write about but how to write it. I never would have guessed some of the top voted college essays would be written on such simple, everyday topics. I have a lot of work to do haha.

A mathematician friend shared this article with me. A reading protocol is a set of strategies that a reader must use in order to benefit fully from reading the text. Mathematics has a reading protocol all its own, and just as we learn to read literature, we should learn to read mathematics. Students need to learn how to read mathematics, in the same way they learn how to read a novel or a poem, listen to music, or view a painting.

I was surprised by this article and by the fact that sometimes, our seemingly boring moments in life has the potential to transform into a great college essay. This article made me change my views of college essays and reexamine what topics I want to write about.

I liked the ideas this essay shared because I realized that if I were to have written my college essay prior to reading this article, my essay would've been similar to the majority of students who submit college essays. This site stresses the importance of being different and that having humility, humor, and personal stories in college essays are attractive. But the article did imply that there are limits and that some things such as torturing animals and showing inconsideration to other people, are inappropriate.

It seems more common now for counselors and advisors to recommend writing about everyday things, but with our own personal "flair." So it was helpful to read in this article about how there are some negative everyday experiences that are important to leave out.

Screens have changed our reading patterns from the linear, left-to-right sequence of years past to a wild skimming and skipping pattern as we hunt for important words and information. One 2006 study of the eye movements of 232 people looking at Web pages found they read in an "F" pattern, scanning all the way across the top line of text but only halfway across the next few lines, eventually sliding their eyes down the left side of the page in a vertical movement toward the bottom. None of this is good for our ability to comprehend deeply, scientists say. Reading text punctuated with links leads to weaker comprehension than reading plain text, several studies have shown. A 2007 study involving 100 people found that a multimedia presentation mixing words, sounds and moving pictures resulted in lower comprehension than reading plain text did. Slow reading means a return to a continuous, linear pattern, in a quiet environment free of distractions. Advocates recommend setting aside at least 30 to 45 minutes in a comfortable chair far from cellphones and computers. Some suggest scheduling time like an exercise session. Many recommend taking occasional notes to deepen engagement with the text.

Currently, one-quarter of American children don't learn to read. This not only endangers them socially and intellectually, but cognitively handicaps them for life. One 2009 study of 72 children ages eight to ten discovered that reading creates new white matter in the brain, which improves system-wide communication. White matter carries information between regions of grey matter, where any information is processed. Not only does reading increase white matter, it helps information be processed more efficiently. Reading in one language has enormous benefits. Add a foreign language and not only do communication skills improve-you can talk to more people in wider circles-but the regions of your brain involved in spatial navigation and learning new information increase in size. Finally, research shows that reading not only helps with fluid intelligence, but with reading comprehension and emotional intelligence as well.

"Researchers found that, on average, those given the harder-to-read fonts actually recalled 14% more.... The researchers caution that their research was done with paid volunteers - who might be more willing to put in that extra bit of effort - and with students at a high-performing school.... 'What really matters most when reading is mindfulness... it's not printing things badly that's needed, but more thoughtful reading.'"

Would make a good field research project.

"The reason that the unusual fonts are effective is that it causes us to think more deeply about the material," a co-author of the study, Daniel M. Oppenheimer, a psychologist at Princeton, wrote in an e-mail. "But we are capable of thinking deeply without being subjected to unusual fonts. Think of it this way, you can't skim material in a hard to read font, so putting text in a hard-to-read font will force you to read more carefully."

I wonder how this might relate to second language learning. When one doesn't know the words, even if the font is markedly legible, reading is slower and more difficult. One would expect comprehension and retention to be better, but I doubt that is the case. Interesting article. Must be why wedding invitations get put into Olde English or ornate script typefaces -- so that folks will read the names more carefully.

Ha!

I wonder what the effects of possessing the skill to read others' facial expressions would produce. Would it strengthen our relationships with people or weaken them?

When the article said that misreading emotions is worst than not knowing of the emotion at all is worst, I question whether reading emotions is even worth it. Also, compared to a century ago, the divorce rate has skyrocketed. Could the lack of reading emotions be the cause of this increase? Emotions are innate and humans have always read or not read emotions. What's the difference between now and then? Freedom? So what if you can read someone's emotions? If you can't assist the person in his/her tragedy or emotional stress being able to read emotions is worthless. In addition Paul Ekman said that the percent rate after his lessons on DVD rose to 80-85%, but that still leaves 15%-20% of mistake. As i previously said, the article says that misreading emotions is worst than not knowing of the emotions at all. There's still of chance of being worst. Are we really accomplishing whatever we are trying to do by learning how to read emotions?

This is a very cool article, as it has caused me to become more aware of other people's reactions - sometimes I know that someone is holding an emotion in, but hopefully, through observing their facial gestures, perhaps I can find out how they feel.

A Liverpool University study found reading poetry lights up both the left part of the brain concerned with language, as well as the right hemisphere, an area that relates to autobiographical memory and emotion. Reading triggers "reappraisal mechanisms" that cause people to reflect on their own experiences in light of what they read. The study might also suggest that word choice and sound are crucial elements in creating beneficial literary experiences: more "challenging" prose and poetry (striking wording/phrasing, complex syntax) sparks far more electrical activity in the brain than more pedestrian translations of those passages.

Dyslexia is the most common learning disability in the U.S. Scientists are exploring how human brains learn to read, and are discovering new ways that brains with dyslexia can learn to cope. 2 areas on the left side of the brain are key for reading: 1. the left temporoparietal cortex: traditionally used to process spoken language. When learning to read, we start using it to sound out words. 2. the occipitotemporal cortex: part of the visual processing center, located at the base of our brain, behind our ears. A person who never learned to read uses this part of the brain to recognize objects - like a toaster or a chair. But, as we become fluent readers, we train this brain area to recognize letters and words visually. These words are called sight words: any word that you can see and instantly know without thinking about the letters and sounds. This requires retraining the brain. When recognizing a chair, the brain naturally sees it from many different angles - left, right, up, down - and, regardless of the perspective, the brain knows it is a chair. But that doesn't work for letters. Look at a lowercase 'b' from the backside of the page, and it looks like a lowercase 'd.' They are the same basic shape and, yet, two totally different letters. But, as it does with a chair, the brain wants to recognize them as the same object. Everyone - not just people with dyslexia - has to teach the brain not to conflate 'b' and 'd'. The good news: intervention and training can help. At the end of the six week training sessions with dyslexics, the brain areas typically associated with reading, in the left hemisphere, became more active. Additionally, right hemisphere areas started lighting up and helping out with the reading process. The lead scientist, Dr. Eden, says this is similar to what scientists see in stroke victims, where other parts of the brain start compensating.

Northwestern University researchers, led by Dr Nina Kraus, found that poor readers had reduced neural response (auditory brainstem activity) to rhythmic rather than random sounds compared to good readers. In fact the level of neural enhancement to acoustic regularities correlated with reading ability as well as musical aptitude. The musical ability test, specifically the rhythm aspect, was also related to reading ability. Similarly a good score on the auditory working memory related to better reading and to the rhythm aspect of musical ability. Dr Kraus explained, "Both musical ability and literacy correlated with enhanced electrical signals within the auditory brainstem. Structural equation modeling of the data revealed that music skill, together with how the nervous system responds to regularities in auditory input and auditory memory/attention accounts for about 40% of the difference in reading ability between children. These results add weight to the argument that music and reading are related via common neural and cognitive mechanisms and suggests a mechanism for the improvements in literacy seen with musical training."

This article talks about why it is impossible to study a sentence and look at the physical structure of the letters without reading or comprehending the sentence meaning. It references the Stroop Effect, which is a cognitive interference where there is a delay in the reaction time of a certain task occurs due to a stimuli conflicting. So when people are told to read a set of words such as "orange, purple, green, blue, yellow", but the color of these words are not that of what they read, people usually stumble as they read. It was interesting because when we are children, it was the opposite, but once we learn the skill to read, it becomes irreversible.

Can babies learn to read? While parents use DVDs and other media in an attempt to teach their infants to read, these tools don't instill reading skills in babies, a study by researchers at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development has found. In their study, which appears in the Journal of Educational Psychology, the researchers examined 117 infants, aged nine to 18 months, who were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Children in the treatment condition received a baby media product, which included DVDs, word and picture flashcards, and flip books to be used daily over a seven-month period; children in the control condition did not receive these materials from the researchers. Over the course of seven months, the researchers conducted a home visit, four laboratory visits, and monthly assessments of language development. To test children's emerging skills in the laboratory, the researchers examined the capacity to recognize letter names, letter sounds, vocabulary, words identified on sight, and comprehension. A combination of eye-tracking tasks and standardized measures were used to study outcomes at each stage of development. Using a state-of-the art eye-tracking technology, which follows even the slightest eye movements, the researchers were able to closely monitor how the infants distributed their attention and how they shifted their gaze from one location to another when shown specific words and phrases. No discernible differences were observed between the results of the experimental group vs. the control; yet parents of the infants in the experimental group perceived that their children were, in fact, acquiring words. :-)

"In cultures with left-to-right orthography (e.g., English-speaking cultures) time appears to flow rightward, but in cultures with right-to-left orthography (e.g., Arabic-speaking cultures) time flows leftward." Participants who read regular text tended to press the left button for past-oriented phrases and the right button for future-oriented phrases, but participants who read mirrored text did the opposite.

"The portion of the brain responsible for visual reading doesn't require vision at all, according to a new study... Brain imaging studies of blind people as they read words in Braille show activity in precisely the same part of the brain that lights up when sighted readers read."