Article
Version 1
Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed
Neuroscience and Literacy: An Integrative View
Version 1
: Received: 6 December 2020 / Approved: 7 December 2020 / Online: 7 December 2020 (11:56:05 CET)
Version 2 : Received: 1 March 2021 / Approved: 2 March 2021 / Online: 2 March 2021 (09:12:01 CET)
Version 3 : Received: 6 April 2021 / Approved: 6 April 2021 / Online: 6 April 2021 (13:26:50 CEST)
Version 2 : Received: 1 March 2021 / Approved: 2 March 2021 / Online: 2 March 2021 (09:12:01 CET)
Version 3 : Received: 6 April 2021 / Approved: 6 April 2021 / Online: 6 April 2021 (13:26:50 CEST)
How to cite: Ellis, G.F.R.; Bloch, C.S. Neuroscience and Literacy: An Integrative View. Preprints 2020, 2020120139. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202012.0139.v1 Ellis, G.F.R.; Bloch, C.S. Neuroscience and Literacy: An Integrative View. Preprints 2020, 2020120139. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202012.0139.v1
Abstract
Significant challenges exist globally regarding literacy teaching and learning, particularly in poor socio-economic settings in countries of the Global South. In this paper we argue that to address these challenges, major features of how the brain works that are currently ignored in the educational literature should be taken into account. First, perception is an active process based in detection of errors in hierarchical predictions of sensory data and action outcomes. Reading is a particular case. Second, emotions play a key role in underlying cognitive functioning. Innate affective systems underlie and shape all brain functioning, including oral and written forms of language and sign. Third, there is not the fundamental difference between listening/speaking and reading/writing often alleged on the basis of evolutionary arguments. Both are socio-cultural practices driven and learnt by the communication imperative of the social brain. Fourth, like listening, reading is not a linear, bottom-up process. Both are non-linear contextually shaped psycho-social processes of understanding, shaped by current knowledge and cultural contexts and practices. Reductionist neuroscience studies which focus on decontextualized parts of reading cannot access all the relevant processes. An integrated view of brain function reflecting this non-linear nature implies that an ongoing focus on personal meaning and understanding provides positive conditions for all aspects of literacy learning. Assessment of literacy teaching at all its stages should include indicators that take into account these foundational features relating reading and writing to neuroscience.
Keywords
Early literacy pedagogy; neuroscience; predictive processing; perception; emotion
Subject
Business, Economics and Management, Accounting and Taxation
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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