I think creating a literate brain is a team sport. Everyone needs to be involved. The parents, caregivers, teachers—they need to be engaged in an interactive way.
This is Susan Lambert and welcome to Science of Reading: The Podcast from Amplify, where the Science of Reading lives. This is episode five in our season-long reading reboot—reexamining and building on foundational literacy concepts. We've already covered comprehension, standards, curriculum, and much more.
On today's episode, I'm joined by the author of a recent book about the brain science behind learning to read that's enjoyable for adults and students alike. Her name is Lori Josephson and she's a literacy specialist educational consultant with expertise in dyslexia. She's also a moderator group expert for the Facebook group, Science of Reading: What I Should Have Learned in College.
And her new book is titled, "Calling All Neurons: How Reading and Spelling Happen." On this episode, we'll delve into that book with Lori, discussing why understanding neural networks is so critical. And she'll also take on some listener submitted questions. Now, let's bring on Lori Josephson. Well, Lori Josephson, thank you so much for joining us on today's episode. I am so excited to have you here.
It is my pleasure.
I would love if you could just introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about who you are and maybe how you got into the world of literacy.
Well, I'm Lori Josephson. I just wrote a new book, which is why you asked me to be a guest, called "Calling All Neurons," and I always wanted to be a teacher since I was a little girl. I babysat; I was a camp counselor; I'm a mom; I have all the kids at my house. And in the 1970s when I wanted to be a teacher, the Colleges of Education were closing because there were no jobs.
Oh, wow.
And enter PL 94-142, the Education for Handicapped Children Act. And I—quick—got my master's in special education and...that law had to be in place by the year 1979, which was the year I got my master's . So I've dated myself, and that's when the terms "free appropriate public education," "IEPs," "educational evaluations" all came into being. And I slid into a job on the Lower East Side of New York City.
And I taught these very low-functioning children when that mandate came through. And then in the 1980s, after several retrospective years of frustration, I learned how to teach using Orton-Gillingham methodologies. And I became involved with the International Dyslexia Association in Baltimore and then in Cleveland. When I raised my family, [we] moved to Cleveland.
And it was then that I was on the board, I'm still on the board and the advisory council all these years later. And I became an educational consultant; I tutored; I did educational evaluations; I taught Orton-Gillingham classes. I'm a fellow of the Orton-Gillingham Academy, and I became a Wilson Language trainer as well. So then in the 1990s, that's when the term "phonological awareness" came to be .
Then the ship came to fluency and the National Reading Panel came to be. So the things that stoked my interest were the National Reading Panel, listening to Louisa Moats speak—I remember my jaw dropping—and also Scarborough's Reading Rope.
I was in special education so the big "aha!" Came for me when, most, not most recently, but several years ago when all the research came to pass, that all children learn to read in the same way, whether or not they have struggles or have special needs or not.
And that the methods used to teach—that I thought—used to teach only children who had dyslexia and other learning disabilities were the same methods that would be good for all children.
Mhhmmm. So you grew up in what we now call the Science of Reading. You actually grew up in all of that and saw that all unfold and develop. So , I'm guessing there's a story in here of why you decided to write this book. So the book is "Calling All Neurons: How Reading and Spelling Happen. I have it right here. All tabbed up.
Mine too .
I'm sure it is . And we'll unpack that a little bit, but what was the motivation for you to write this book?
Well, I received a book from a sister of mine who was in publishing called "How You Talk," and it was in 1996 and explained the process of how we speak and how our, not our brain, but our articulatory system learned to speak. And I had this idea, and it was about 25, you know, between 25, 26 years ago.
I said to my co-presenter, I said, "You know, when we retire, we should write this book and extend it to reading." Well, in the meanwhile, she is still working. I stopped seeing students directly and training teachers directly, and I decided that I was going to do this. And there were many books written for professionals to read. Books by Stanislas Dehaene, Sally Shaywitz , Maryanne Wolf, Mark Seidenberg.
And there were some for very young children so that they could learn to read, one by Denise Eide, "How the Brain Learns to Read." But there were none for older students. And I would say this book is appropriate for kids eight and up. Maybe siblings of students who were struggling. And you know, when students struggle in school, it affects the entire family system.
Parents and teachers—teachers would say to me, "I don't have time to read those books," or, "I only read books in the summer and I want to read a beach read." You know, I would get that constantly. You know, parents, same thing. So my book fills the void, I feel, in that area of writing it in a simple and fun-to-explain way so that kids and parents and teachers can benefit from learning.
Mmm. That's great. And your whole background and experience, all your teaching, all the work that you did, learning about how kids learn how to read, all the training that you did, that all sort of comes together in this book, doesn't it?
Yes. I would call it somewhat of a capstone project.
I love that.
It's somewhat , yes. I mean, I read all those books. And they're dogeared and some of the authors have signed those books. And I attended many, many, many conferences in addition to presenting professional development myself and working in the field all over the state I lived in at the time, Ohio, and that tri-state area of New York, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio.
Mm-Hmm. Yeah. And what I love about this book is because [of] the audience that you wrote it to, it really is super accessible and super simple to pick up and read cover t o cover. But then it also has a lot of depth that you can go back and, you know, reread and think more about. So, congratulations.
I think you did a brilliant job of simplifying it to get to the right audience, but yet providing something really comprehensive. And we're going to dig in a little bit more to that.
Thank you. That means a lot coming from you.
You titled this thing "Calling All Neurons." So let's start by talking a little bit about neurons and the neural network. How did you, number one, why? And how did you incorporate that throughout the book?
Why? Because, well, let me just define a neuron.
That'd be great.
For people who don't know, neuron is the basic working unit of the brain. They're specialized nerve cells and they send information to other nerve cells, and to muscles, and to glands, actually. And what is a neural network? Okay. So these specialized neurons exist in our brains. And human beings were never hardwired to learn to make sense of print—either to read it or to write it. We were wired for oral language.
We were wired to recognize faces. We were wired to move and to hear and to see. So we have seeing neurons, hearing neurons, moving neurons, language neurons, and, in the front of the brain, the executive function neurons, which work together—both chemically and electronically. And they're constantly interacting and sending messages to each other faster and faster and faster as students become better readers and spellers.
And ideally, what should happen , if all goes well, is that new neuronal networks are formed in our brains, in all of our brains, that allow us to read, to write, to speak and understand written language. I also want to point out the newest research that Maryanne Wolf talks about. And that's the use of the cerebellum, which is the little brain at the base of the neck.
And that has a big influence on timing, process speed of word recognition—which then will impact reading fluency—handwriting fluency, and even movement and attention. So the cerebellum is increasingly more important than we originally thought. And so the interactive neuronal networks were not wired, as I said—only what I said—the sight , the sound, the language, and the movement are wired.
And everything revolves around the language. So if you look at the cover of the book, you'll see all these different neurons are there and they're color coded. And what you see is you see the interacting networks and the yellow areas, when you look at the cover of the book, are where they all intersect and where the action occurs. Wernicke's area. Broca's area.
And that's why most students need explicit instruction to create and activate these neurons, this new neuron network. So the neurons themselves take the stage to narrate the book . So when I describe what each neuron does and how they interact, sometimes the neurons are speaking themselves, and sometimes the neurons are together in the book. And basically the language neurons are always critical.
They're always interacting with the language neurons deep in the brain. I can't even point to it because it's so, so far inside.
But you have great images in the book to help us understand what it looks like and how they work.
Yes! That was one of the hardest parts of the book, was to get my illustrator to change my thoughts and my descriptions into the correct images.
Yeah.
That was rough.
I bet it was. And you sort of carry the concept all the way through the book, too. So you were telling me when we were talking that even every chapter page introduces something about that network. So we're constantly coming back to that neural network.
Yes. And let me add that these neuronal networks also have to do with self-regulation. Especially the executive function right here in the front of the brain: motivation, self esteem, and even reading stamina. I think that's all. And when students understand the process, I think that they have a better understanding of what they have to do.
I can't tell you how many passive learners I supervise—because I would, you know, supervise the teacher who was working with their practicum students. And they were so used to not trying, and so used to struggling, that they didn't understand that they had to actually "do" something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. And I think it's helpful for all stakeholders: parents, children, and teachers to understand that children need to know that they have to do something.
Yeah. Be an active participant in this process.
Yes.
And I do love how you walk through each one of these. I can imagine for an older student who really is struggling to learn how to read, that this could actually be life changing. Did you have that experience with older students that you were able to talk to them about what's happening and what they need to do?
Oh, yes. For every student, young, old, in between. And I've even supervised my own students, but there was a practicum student who was an adult. Every time I saw a new student, I would draw them a map of the brain and I would explain to them what they needed to do. And I would explain to them also that they had to take the long road.
And they kept that picture—"long road" meaning they had to learn using explicitly at a time when they weren't being taught that way in the 1990s and early 2000s. That they were going to learn about language more than anybody else in their class. And that they would be taking a little bit of a longer road, but that they were sightseeing things that they shouldn't miss, including ice cream and landscaping.
And every single student had their notebook and they kept that picture in their notebook. And they told me later how much that impacted them. And even now, I think this is going to come up later in the interview, what kids who are reading the book are saying. So I'll save that 'til later.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hold onto that because we actually need to jump into the second part of the title. So the subtitle is actually "How Reading and Spelling Happen." I love that you used both "reading" and "spelling." Can you tell us why?
Why? Because it's a reciprocal process and I am quoting you, Susan and I knew that anyway. They basically depend on each other and enhance each other. Typically, students who are poor spellers tend to be poor readers. Not always. But definitely all poor readers tend to be poor spellers. So one is washing the hand of the other, or as I call it, two sides of the same coin.
And the coin is the simultaneous interaction of reading and spelling at the sound level, the word level, the sentence, and even the paragraph levels. And I can maybe read a piece of that from my book to explain that.
Please do.
Okay. Here's the picture of the coins. "As you read this book, you will find out reading and spelling are two sides of the same coin. In other words, reading and spelling work together at the same time." Notice the change in language to make it easier for kids to understand. "Spelling helps readers become better readers. Reading helps writers become better spellers.
When a person reads, the task moves from seeing to hearing. When a person spells, the task moves from hearing to speaking. When a person writes, the task moves from thinking about spelling to moving as one writes or as one keyboards. When a person reviews what has been written, the task moves from writing back to seeing."
Hmm . The whole circuit there, you included.
Yes.
There's a lot to unpack there. But when we're thinking about what instruction should look like, this sounds like the best description of the Orton-Gillingham process. Would you say that's right?
Yes. It makes me think of what's called the Orton-Gillingham triangle.
Tell me more about that.
Basically...it's a triangle and the arrows go in all directions. And one of the areas is visual. One of the points on the triangle. Another point is auditory. And the third point is kinesthetic. Now, this book was originally written by Anna Gillingham and Bessie Stillman under the tutelage of Samuel Orton. And that was in the 1930s.
Wow.
So we've known about this for a very long time. So basically you're going back and forth between visual and auditory, auditory and kinesthetic, and visual to kinesthetic. I remember a drawing of a child. It's a picture of a child's brain, and it connects their eyes, the ears, and their hand in the triangle. And it's superimposed upon this triangle as a child.
And I think somewhere along the way, we've lost some of that auditory and definitely the kinesthetic.
Yeah. Yeah.
And hopefully we're bringing it back.
Yes! I hear lots of people talking about it. And I hear lots of people talking about when we teach the sound spelling patterns, we teach kids how to form the letter that represents that sound. To be able to see it and hear it and write it, and then later read it in words.
And connecting all those together in instruction means that reading and spelling should be taught simultaneously, or in tandem, as students are learning to read. Would you agree with that?
Yes. Who wouldn't? I hope, I hope that's been dispelled.
Well, if nothing else, this book does a lot to help us understand that. I understand that you have gotten some very amazing endorsements on this book. Can you talk a little bit about those endorsements?
Yes, I can. The most exciting one came from Dr. Maryanne Wolf herself, and...it came from the lion's mouth, but in this case, I think of it as "the Wolf's mouth." < Laughs > And she writes extensively on the reading brain. So she emailed me after I emailed her to request an endorsement at like 11:30 at night. So I'm in bed looking at my phone, which I shouldn't be doing.
Shouldn't be doing. No, no, no.
I shouldn't be doing. And so I then spent the next six hours not sleeping. Anyway, and this is what she wrote: "In the service of helping the young discover the beauty of reading, this book embodies one of the more delightful invitations to learning: whimsy." So now I'm going to read one to you from a parent of an adult child who has overcome dyslexia. And this person is herself dyslexic.
And I'll tell you who she is at the end of what she wrote. "I wish this book had existed 30 years ago when we were struggling with understanding our child's learning issues. It would have served as a resource we could have shared together. I urge all parents who want to help their children with learning differences to read this book with your child.
It may help the light at the end of the tunnel shine brightly a little bit sooner." Who is this person? She's an anesthesiologist at Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital. And she is one of my college roommates.
Oh, that's amazing.
Her daughter now is also a physician in rehabilitative medicine.
That is amazing.
I just want to say that it warms my heart to know just how many people have been and can continue to be helped by using this book in academic and home settings. I just feel wonderful about that.
Yeah, that's amazing. And can we go back to this endorsement that you got from Maryanne Wolf? And I hope I can ask you this question. I understand that because of that endorsement, you also made a modification or addition to the text. Is that right?
It is! It is Maryanne Wolf herself who said you need to add the information about the influence of the cerebellum in this process. And in the January issue of "Annals of Dyslexia," there's an open—I think it's an open resource—article about it, which maybe we can put in the notes.
We can link in the show notes for sure. We can link that article.
It's a very interesting article.
That's great. I I love that. So, that sort of makes this book a little bit unique in terms of telling the story of how neurons work to develop reading and writing. What other things do you think make this book unique? I think you've already said the audience, right?
Yes. There's no other book that does this. I think I use true terminology. I'm not watering down the terminology. It's in there, the parts of the brain are in there. And I took time to help readers to pronounce these words. Wernicke's area is not an easy word to read. I've tried to make it enjoyable and fun to read with children of all ages.
And I think another thing that's unique, I mentioned a little earlier, is the color coding. I color coded the brain. Each neuron also has, you know, a little caricature piece to it that helps readers know what they are. So the auditory neurons are wearing headphones. I also give concrete explanations and illustrations of each concept, beginning with early oral language development and the roles of each one.
The decoding and encoding development is covered. Fluency is covered. Comprehension is covered. Morphology is covered. Language syntax is covered. And even the role of punctuation. I can't tell you how many students I have worked with who had no idea that quotation marks meant that somebody's speaking.
So you do have a glossary of those important terms at the end. And some additional information. You also have these QR codes throughout.
Yes.
Can you talk about that ?
I have a few that show how the larynx works, and also sound blending and sound segmentation so that people can see—children can see—other children demonstrating these concepts, because the blending and segmenting is the most important. I also used a QR code from my bibliography because I want it to be an evolving, living thing.
And there's also a QR code for additional information for things that could be downloaded, such as the most common suffixes, which aren't that many. If you teach a few, you've done a lot, teachers and parents. There's bookmarks, there are pages for kids to color. Also, I made a big effort to make the children and the teachers be diverse in nature—racially, culturally diverse.
And I love that you called out that you don't have a list of references here because it's kept someplace else. Some of us, that's the first thing we do is we jump right to, "OK, who is she using as the base for her research in this book?" But I love that it's ever-evolving for you.
And we will link our listeners in the show notes to your website as well, if they want to look at it before they actually get the book and pop into those QR codes. Anything else you'd like to mention about this book?
Well, I think it lends itself to having—I mean, it's available as a Kindle, but I think it's so much better as a book. And you can read it one chapter at a time with children and then read and discuss the illustrations over a period of time, depending on the age of the children. And in short segments. Because I think children process things in different quantities. So the availability is fine.
I think it's good for any child, whether or not they are a struggling reader or speller. I do mention dyslexia. One of the other QR codes is to the International Dyslexia Association. And there's even a self test that I link to see, because a lot of parents of children who have learning issues, also had learning issues. It's good for any parent or educator who's still in the midst of learning about Science of Reading.
And I think just the glossary itself is a good resource.
Yeah, I agree with that. I totally agree. We've gotten a couple of questions from our listener mailbag that I think are really, really relevant specifically for the contents of this book. But how do you think—we've talked a little bit about how the book might relate to upper elementary students that are struggling and want to understand how, you know, how your brain learns how to read.
What else does the content of this book help those upper elementary students with that actually lack those foundational skills ?
Well, I firmly believe that no matter how old you are, you still need to learn the same information. Let's let that sink in. If someone does not, if an individual in middle school or high school does not have the foundational skills, your memory is only so big.
That's why so many children are not identified as having learning issues until third or fourth grade when they are at capacity in terms of memorizing whole words.
Right. Right.
They're just at capacity. So imagine being that child four years later and the NAEP [National Assessment of Educational Progress] scores tell that story very well, I'm sad to say. So I think they need to learn the same information. One of my readers teaches high school to struggling students. She bought the book, she's reading it with her students and she said they love it.
Some children are using it when they get to the part of the lesson where they read what's deemed as authentic text and they love learning about how they learn. And then I know another colleague of mine who teaches middle school students has been using—because she had seen an earlier manuscript—she's been actually using it with her students for a couple years before the book ever came out.
And in my mind, I use this equation. And it is: Knowledge equals motivation, equals active learning, equals resilience, equals success.
Wow . That's a big one. Say it one more time.
Knowledge equals or leads to motivation, equals or leads to active learning, equals or leads to resilience, equals or leads to success.
That's great.
You have to own...these older students must own their struggles if they want to move forward. And this book helps them to own their struggles and know what to do to help themselves, you know?
Yeah. And partnered with a good teacher that can help them see and learn and practice and celebrate their successes too along the way. So, essentially you're saying if you have a middle or high school student that doesn't know how to read, you gotta go back to the same foundations as what you would with...a kindergartener, first or second grader.
Yes. And you have to meet them where they're at. So you don't want to make it babyish. You basically want to teach them. We would, some schools would call it linguistics, a linguistics class. I would just say, "Hey, we're not going to be here forever at this early stage where we're blending "c-a-t," but you need to understand what your brain needs to do."
It's as if, for many of these children, it's as if their auditory part of their brain wasn't ever involved in the process.
Mm-Hmm. Yeah.
And they were just leaning so heavily on the visual part of their brain and the language part of their brain. And a lot of these kids also have language issues. So, when you can't read, you also don't learn vocabulary, and you don't accumulate background knowledge. And it just sort of snowballs and spirals into something that's pretty out of control for a lot of children. And I want that to stop.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
You know , I just want to also mention Nancy Young's Ladder of Reading, which we should probably put in the notes, too . She basically says that about five percent of kids can learn to read no matter what, however they're learning, no matter what—only five pecent. And that the vast majority of students will benefit from explicit instruction. But there's also a segment on the ladder that really needs this instruction.
This explicit instruction based on Science of Reading tenets.
Mm-Hmm . Yeah.
And I think that's a big "aha!" for a lot of teachers and parents.
Yeah. And I think that leads to sort of the next question we have: Any advice for educators who work with students with significant cognitive disabilities when we're thinking about reading and writing ?
Well , I gave that question a lot...I'm giving that question a lot of thought. I think it depends on the extent of the cognitive disability. You know, some children are not able to speak and I think that's a huge impediment to learning to read—is not being able to speak. I think that the illustrations on the book are really helpful to many—could be helpful to many students in this population.
I think that many of these students can learn sound symbol associations and they can learn encoding and decoding. And it depends on what their level is, to what extent they can learn that. But I think they can understand the alphabetic concept most of the time, certainly at a foundational level.
And many of these students can then learn many high frequency, non-phonetic words, and I would refer them to the Heart Word Routine, on how to best learn those. But, like everyone, we can read to and with these children and expand their vocabularies, expand their world and background knowledge. So by listening to books, these children have access to this information and they can talk about it.
I think it's always best to have a teacher, a parent, or another older student or more able student to mediate the text with that student for sure. But it's really hard to, it's really hard to give a pat answer to that because it depends. I think they would enjoy the short videos and the descriptions, and I think they'd like the idea of, you know, knowing that something's happening in their head.
Yeah. For sure. For sure. It was super helpful. And as a reminder to our listeners, please submit your questions. We'll have a link in the show notes for that. So we've talked about a lot. Is there anything else you'd like to mention that I didn't ask?
Yes. In fact. I think—of course, we educators like to talk—I think creating a literate brain is a team sport.
Tell me more.
Everyone needs to be involved. The parents, caregivers, teachers—they need to be engaged in an interactive way. And learning to read takes—English, anyway—takes several years. Just because your student is able, if you have a young child who can read any word, that doesn't mean they comprehend every word. We've got populations like that. We've got populations of kids who are just a little, you know, like Leo the late bloomer.
They don't really get it, and then they take off. Just like there are children who start walking without ever crawling. That doesn't mean that something's wrong. We're just all individuals and we're all a little different. But it does, in general, take several years to become a skillful, proficient reader. I think learning about everything I write in the book, the fluency, the morphology, gives kids a sense of metacognition.
We didn't mention that word. So they know what they know, and they know what they need to do. And knowing word parts—knowing, for example, that the base "port" means "to carry" will help them read words and understand words like "portable," "transportation," "import," "export." When they're sitting in their science and social studies classes, they'll understand that better. So I personally think that literacy is a civil right.
It's also a gift. These are sort of my parting words here. And it's an opportunity to share thoughts, feelings with others that can be revisited and saved forever.
Hmm . Yeah.
And I think that's really important. I think reading does enable human beings to develop empathy. So think of a book that has staying power for you. I mean, I thought about "Little Women," reading that as a kid. I thought about "The Diary of Anne Frank." I remember that being so impactful. And maybe 60 years later, I finally got to Amsterdam and saw the place and it brought back that—everything—to me.
It's just been very enormously impactful.
Yeah. That's amazing. And as you were talking, of course, one of my favorite books as a kid was "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler." Oh , that didn't come out quite right. Anyway, it introduced me to New York City. So there you go.
< Laugh > . Oh, yes. Yes. The kids...sleep—did they sleep in the museum?
She did. She ran away from home and she went to the Met and stayed there. So anyway.
See?
Oh, well, we really appreciate you. Well, first of all, appreciate your life work . Thank you for what you've done for so many students and so many educators to help them understand how our brain learns to read. And thank you for your capstone project of this book to the world.
And thank you for having me. It's been really a pleasure talking with you.
Oh, it's been a pleasure as well. And again, for our listeners, we'll link all the resources in the show notes for you to see. So thank you again, Lori .
You're welcome.
That was Lori Josephson. She's a literacy specialist, educational consultant, and moderator group expert for the Facebook group Science of Reading: What I Should Have Learned in College. Her new book is "Calling All Neurons: How Reading and Spelling Happen." Next up in our reading reboot, we're joined by Dr. Susanne Nobles, who will detail the critical importance of text selection.
Kids know when a text is worth their time. Really having that engagement early on when they're learning to read is so key because they're not hating reading. And so that text quality matters.
That's coming up next time. And remember to submit your own Science of Reading question by visiting amplify.com/SoRmailbag. By submitting a question, you can also win a visit from me to your school . If you know someone who might like this reading reboot, please tell a friend or colleague about the show .
And the best way to get new episodes is to subscribe to Science of Reading: The Podcast on the podcast platform of your choice. While you're there, please leave us a rating and review. Join the conversation about this episode in our Facebook discussion group, Science of Reading: The Community. Science of Reading: The Podcast is brought to you by Amplify. I'm Susan Lambert. Thank you so much for listening.