Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World Hardcover – August 7, 2018

I was a teacher, father, and college professor in teacher education.In all three areas, mentioned above, this book might be one of the most important books that you’ll ever read. When you think about the content of this book, it just may tell you some things about yourself.The presentations by the author on the Internet are not very impressive, so don’t watch them. Read this book.

This book really helped me to adjust to living now, with all the demands on our attention.Personally, I want to develop my own intelligence so that I get better and better at making a difference in the world, not only through my work, but also through my quality of attention in my personal relationships.Reading this book equipped me with knowledge to make more informed decisions about how I take in information and how I pay attention. So it's helped me improve in both ways. I think reading this book has set me on a path of making a bigger, stronger positive difference.I read more, and less distractedly. And though this isn't a big topic in the book, I am also less distracted when I'm with people. If there were habits about skim-reading the people in my life, I think some of those have been rooted out too.Thanks, Maryanne Wolf!

This book was tedious but important. With the digital age comes the increasing gaps between the information we read and the analysis and reflection we apply to it. Reading a book encourages understanding, empathy, and contemplation. Reading things online encourages skimming, reading without expansive thought. (Studies show we read differently between physical and digital.) Our reading circuits (yes this is a thing in our brains) can be changed with this skimming method in lieu of total immersion in a story. To truly take advantage of our increased connectivity, we need to be "fluent in both languages." That's basically the author's long-winded plea, to which she works up through a series of letters to the reader. She also makes very plain how lack of empathy or critical thought can have exceedingly negative consequences because people lose (or don't want to use) the ability to, for lack of a better term, sniff out the bullshit. Some important points, which I will paraphrase due to length:--threats to critical thinking: 1) when any powerful framework for understanding our world (e.g. political or religious view) becomes so impenetrable and strict that even evidence- or morally-based opposion is ignored; 2) absence of any developed personal belief system in due to lack of knowledge or interest-if info is perceived as surface-level entertainment, it stays at the surface and doesn't evoke deep thought or critical thinking-"the last thing a society needs is what Socrates feared: young people thinking they know the truth before they ever begin the arduous practice of searching for it"-when we retreat from the complexity of human life, we turn to what conforms to the narrowing confines of what we already know (and our existing prejudices), never kicking the tires-Reading allows us to understand "the other" (people unlike ourselves, characters with feelings or people we will never meet). Without it, we are vulnerable to people demonizing "the other." COUGH LOOK AROUND, COUGH-kids need physical books to develop a foundation for their future; introducing digital stuff like coding can be a great complement... If done correctly

Assuming a counter-intuitive approach, Wolf theorizes that in order to appreciate the science of reading and the biochemistry that endows our neuroplastic brains with the ability to read, process information, comprehend, and adapt these skills to ever-changing and evolving stimuli—all of this requires compassion, empathy, and a profound sense of humanity.She draws upon thinkers and writers from Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Italo Calvino to Toni Morrison to help develop her point that reading is the foundation not only of human intellect but of our very survival as a species. While this may sound like a dire clarion call to action, Wolf resists the urge to be alarmist. Composing each chapter as a letter to the reader, Wolf quite sensibly advocates biliteracy for current and future children of the 21st century. Yes, she cites the requisite statistics and scholarship that, in more amateurish hands, might simply provoke dread. Quite expertly, however, she balances her realism with a strong sense of optimism as she acknowledges that we cannot stem the tide of digital literacy. In fact, we would be wise not to. She urges us instead to support both print literacy and digital literacy as part of her hypothesis that biliterate brains can develop much as bilingual brains do.Casting a wide net—this book will appeal to researchers, educators, and parents alike—Wolf has begun a dialogue in which we all must participate, whether we prefer to use a pen or a keyboard.

This is an excellent book, that gives ample evidence warning of both excessive 'smart phone' reliance, and the dangers of not learning to read well. These twins effect one's capacity to think deeply about issues. This is must read for parents of children.

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.

The writing style is enticing but the discussion of literacy development and teaching and learning were disappointing and at time ahistorical. The characterization of a number of issues was not balanced. It was as if the author was intent on positioning her arguments in a positive fashion and on the backs of selective critiques and at time misrepresentation of alternatives.

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.