By reading on our devices, we’re losing abilities it took us thousands of years to develop.

That’s because reading from a screen – a computer, a tablet, a phone – lends itself to skimming. This lack of deep reading alters brain development and erodes essential skills, like critical thinking and empathy, according to literacy expert, Maryanne Wolf.

Author of the book, Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, Maryanne is the Director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners and Social Justice at UCLA and past professor of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University. She is Co-Founder of Curious Learning, a global literacy project, and she works with the Dyslexia Center at the UCSF School of Medicine.

Maryanne is not opposed to digital reading. Instead, she’s on a mission to help us develop what she calls a "bi-literate brain," that is, a brain suited for digital and analog reading, and she explains how we can teach young people to gain these important skills.

Episode Links

@MaryanneWolf_

NataliePhillips

Ziming Liu

Barbara Oakley’s interview on Curious Minds on Learning How to Learn

The Lost Art of Reading by David Ulin

Internet of Stings by Jennifer Howard

Sam Wineberg

Marilynne Summers

Ann Mangan

Susan B. Neuman

If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes.

CM 120: Maryanne Wolf on Digital Reading

Curious Minds at Work