Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World

Dear Author,As an Old-fashioned Reader, I am sopping up your letters and, at the same time, I am rationing them out to myself so they won’t be over.You are teaching me why I love reading so much.I am a carnal reader. Beside absorbing the contents of the book, its about drinking in the whole page, digesting the language, loving the smell of the ink and appreciating all the different kinds of paper, I am one who loves to Come Home to the printed page. I come home to myself when I hold a real book and turn its paper pages.So,Dear Author, I am in your debt, gratefully yours, a devoted Reader from the northeast provinces.AKM

This book was recommended to me by another faculty member at the liberal arts university where I work. It was, in turn, recommended to him by another faculty member. I will write a letter to the Deans suggesting that this book be the focus of some sort of larger discussion of the curriculum. That's how powerful I found this.Reader, Come Home is, simultaneously, a foray into brain science, a defense of the traditional skills provided by reading deeply in history, philosophy, and literature, and a contemplation of the costs and opportunities of technological change. Girded by both scientific research and broad reading in the humanities, virtually every page has insights and information worth noting down. It is an incredibly rich and clearly written work.I find her prescriptions a little less convincing than the descriptions she offers, but this is a work that anybody raising children, anyone engaged in education, and anyone who cares about technology and society should read. Highly recommended.

Everyone who cares about the human mind and spirit needs to read Maryanne Wolf’s eloquent Reader, Come Home. Wolf is not only a passionate reader herself but a scholar of both reading and the brain. What’s more, she is a gifted writer, combining all of her talents to craft a book that is at once engaging and insightful.The book persuasively makes the case that deep, immersive reading is not just possible but much needed in our contemporary faster-than-a-speeding-digit world. Wolf reveals the science, along with the everyday praxis, of reading in print versus on a digital screen, explaining what we know – and don’t yet know – about ways in which digital reading may be affecting our brains. She gently but convincingly urges us not to abandon the profound mental benefits and personal joys of settling in with a book. Take her up on the invitation!

This is poorly written. It reads like a PhD thesis that has has marginally edited. For rxample, there’s an obvious effort to demonstrate how many books the author has read. I was drawn in by the title. Misrepresents. Sorry.

This book answered many questions about reading today with all the technology. It always called up many other questions concerning deep reading and digital reading. The all important question is why are so many children not succeeding with reading. Schools tend to go from one technique to another instead of dealing with individual learning styles and needs. Rereading parts of this book to gain deeper insight.

Reading researcher Maryanne Wolf is an optimist and still believes we can save reading. As an instructor of college freshman composition, I am not so sure, but I believe in Professor Wolf. The problem is that we need buy-in by parents, educators and politicians -- and young people -- in order to pull this off. Wolf is on the frontlines and reports on some efforts that have produced positive results. There is a weak spot, in my mind, in her argument, but nothing serious. This is a fabulous, encouraging and yet scary read all in one.

There are some important differences in attention span and memory between screen reading and paper book reading.Adult readers should be aware-and be sure that you are dividing your reading between digital and paper representations.The science is presented in a somewhat oversimplified manner, but the plus side of so doing means that content accessible to more readers.Parents: this is critical information for you. Early exposure to reading is mission critical for your child. I started reading (board) books to my child at four months of age, and we read read aloud together through the elementary years.We were not in a hurry to move that to screen time. My son is now a PhD candidate and a polymath-not a coincidence!

Mary Ann Wolf is a poetic author whose commitment to research and students success is the underlying theme of all of her books. A must read.

Professor Maryanne Wolf has spent her career and life studying reading disabilities, especially on their connection with brain function. She has family members who are dyslexic – and she thinks that she, too, has a slightly unusual brain development that makes her read music at a different tempo from others in her music class. In this book, written in the personable style of a series of nine letters to her readers, Prof Wolf writes about the important connections between brain function and reading ability (or disability as the case may be). She discusses the importance of visual recognition and memory and their impact on the acquisition of reading skills. All that are part of the phenomenon that concerns conventional reading – even if we include the reading of early human writings in cuneiform and hieroglyphic. She tells us that everything is about to change. Just when neurologists and language specialists are just beginning to understand the correlation between brain function and literacy, a new phenomenon is about to sweep human society in every reading world – digital reading. Book reading, Prof Wolf says, gives us something modern reading from digital devices cannot give – deep reading. In fact, she claims, prolonged reading from digital devices take away the ability of deep reading. That is connected to the loss of cognitive patience, the ability to read at a measured pace, enabling our brain to recognise, then understand, then remember, and finally, to analyse what we read. The people most at risk are children and the young reader. Prof Wolf discusses questions concerning how much exposure parents should allow their pre-school children, and how many digital devices should parents allow their young children to use. The point she makes is that the prolonged reading from digital devices robs us of attention and she explains what this loss will mean in the long term. More importantly, she suggests what parents ought to do to prevent the paradoxical atrophy of the brain from excessive reading – from digital devices. She explains why it is important for parents to read to their bi-lingual or multi-lingual children in their own language; and why it is important to do this before the child reaches the age of two. She ends with the ninth letter telling us about the three important lives of a good reader – in gathering information and knowledge; the pleasure of immersion in reading; and the reflective life, which is the culmination of the first two lives.

This is a ‘must read’ for anyone who is interested in the reading process and what can go wrong. A bible for anyone who works with Dyslexia.

Really informative, accessible and engaging.

Borrowed '"Reader, Come Home" from local library. Read every day; have no patience with books not my cuppa' tea. Nose in a book all my long life; even so, sense the world it is a'changing. This book gently, artistically focuses on what I may be forever missing if I am not made more aware of the cost of change. Maryanne Wolf has beautifully, effectively expressed how books have impacted my life, she details what is at stake in the new world of readership. Definitely a " Keeper" in my home library. Condition of book A+; shipping prompt and on time.

An interesting non-fiction book with important content. Requires concentration and a high level of English competence. Fascinating research presented well ... causes me to reflect on my use of digital devices.A point made on the first page: ... "human beings were never born to read" - THAT's something to think about!