Brains On: How Do We Learn to Read — and Why is It Hard?

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Speaker 5 Hi, this is Emily.

Speaker 5 We've got something special on the Sold Solda Story podcast feed. It's from our friends at Brains On.

Speaker 5 Brains On is a science podcast for kids from American public media. I listened to an episode they did a few years ago about kids with dyslexia.
It was good.

Speaker 6 I recommend it.

Speaker 5 And when Solda Story came out, I got in touch with the producers of Brains On and I said, how about an episode for kids about how people learn to read?

Speaker 5 We heard from a bunch of kids in response to Solda's story.

Speaker 5 One woman wrote about her 10-year-old nephew's response. When he listened, she said, tears rolled down his face.
He realized he was a child who had been taught the poorest strategies.

Speaker 5 We heard from kids who said listening to the podcast made them feel less alone. And we heard from adults who said the same thing.

Speaker 5 They didn't understand when they were little why they had such a hard time learning to read. They were ashamed, kept it a secret.
But it's nothing to be ashamed of.

Speaker 5 It's not uncommon to have a hard time with reading. And as I said in Solda's story, there are very, very smart people who struggle to learn how to read.

Speaker 5 So grab the kids in your life and the people who were once kids and maybe struggling to learn how to read and listen to today's episode of Brains On.

Speaker 7 You're listening to Brains On, where we're serious about being curious.

Speaker 8 Brains On is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Speaker 10 So then I said, Kitty, that kangaroo kept that kebab all to herself. Not very kind, and it was quite a kerfoffle.

Speaker 6 Hasn't that kangaroo heard of karma?

Speaker 12 Oh, letter K.

Speaker 13 Don't look now, but letter C is headed this way.

Speaker 13 And you're both wearing the same outfit again.

Speaker 10 OMG, this is so embarrassing. Every single alphabet party.

Speaker 14 Shh.

Speaker 13 Here they come.

Speaker 13 Oh, hi, letter C.

Speaker 6 Hi, letter N.

Speaker 3 Hello, letter K.

Speaker 10 Hello, letter C.

Speaker 6 Look, I wasn't going to say anything, but you need to stop copying me.

Speaker 13 Okay, I'm just going to

Speaker 6 go.

Speaker 9 I'm really going to need you to stop making the K sound. It's too confusing.

Speaker 2 Excuse me?

Speaker 10 You want me, letter K, to stop?

Speaker 7 K is all I do.

Speaker 10 Put me next to an A.

Speaker 6 K. An I.
K.

Speaker 10 E-O-U. K.
And what happens when you get put next to, oh, I don't know, a letter E?

Speaker 15 I make a s

Speaker 11 sound.

Speaker 7 Excuse me?

Speaker 9 I couldn't hear you? I make a s

Speaker 6 sound.

Speaker 10 How about when you're next to the letter I?

Speaker 9 Fine, I make a s sound. But don't go around pretending you're all k all the time.

Speaker 3 I don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 9 Well, how about we talk about your good friend, Letter N, who just scampered away.

Speaker 1 When you hang out with letter N, you lose yourself entirely.

Speaker 6 That's right.

Speaker 1 When the two of you get together, all I hear is mm.

Speaker 18 Mm.

Speaker 9 You know what I mean?

Speaker 10 I know, I know.

Speaker 9 You're right. I need to stand up for myself.
I can't just let letter N swallow me up.

Speaker 7 Look at me, here with my leg kicking out.

Speaker 9 Hey, letter C, we're always stronger when we're together. You know what K-I-C-K spells?

Speaker 6 Kick!

Speaker 16 Let's kick it together.

Speaker 11 I hear there are some killer cookies kept on the snack C-K cart.

Speaker 15 Ooh, and cups of kettle corn.

Speaker 21 You're listening to Brains On from APM Studios. I'm Molly Bloom, and I'm here with my co-host, Anna from Brooklyn, New York.

Speaker 22 Hi, Anna.

Speaker 7 Hey, Molly.

Speaker 23 And today we're answering all of our listener questions about reading.

Speaker 21 A bunch of you have written to us wondering about it, like Isabel from Montreal.

Speaker 8 Why when you're a little you can't read?

Speaker 25 My name is Colin, and my name is Catherine, and we're from Charlottesville, Virginia. Our question is, why do we read?

Speaker 7 These are great questions, but before we can answer them, we have to jump back in time to when we were babies.

Speaker 21 Babies are born not knowing how to do much.

Speaker 7 They're so cute. Big eyes, squishy legs, adorable little gummy smiles.

Speaker 26 They're also pretty helpless.

Speaker 22 Beyond eating, pooping, and sleeping, they can't do a lot.

Speaker 7 But given some time, most babies will eventually figure out how to get around on their own and how to communicate with other people just by watching the adults around them, which is pretty amazing when you think about it.

Speaker 29 When it comes to reading though, most kids will not figure that out on their own.

Speaker 7 And that's because reading is a relatively new skill for humans.

Speaker 30 Right, our brains did not evolve to do this naturally.

Speaker 21 Our early human ancestors didn't read, so there's not a part of the brain that's labeled the reading part.

Speaker 7 Humans are really clever though. About 5,000 years ago, people in the Middle East came up with a system to write down the words and ideas that had been spoken for generations.

Speaker 33 But even after reading started, it still took took a long time in history for reading and writing to catch on.

Speaker 18 It wasn't until pretty recently that reading became a normal, regular thing for most people to do.

Speaker 26 And they still have to work to learn it.

Speaker 14 Which brings us to our first question.

Speaker 39 What does it take to become a good reader?

Speaker 7 Let's clarify. There are lots of different languages out there, but we're talking today about what it takes to become a good reader of the English language.

Speaker 41 There are two things you need to be able to do to be a good good reader.

Speaker 12 First, you need to know what words mean.

Speaker 7 That's called language comprehension. Comprehension is another way of saying understanding.

Speaker 30 Understanding what words mean is not unique to reading.

Speaker 14 You need this to be a good listener and talker too.

Speaker 7 And good language comprehension is something kids can pick up by talking to other people, watching TV shows, having books read to them, and listening to podcasts.

Speaker 21 The second part of being a good reader is being able to decode or figure out written words.

Speaker 14 And this is the tricky part.

Speaker 29 So let's break it down into steps.

Speaker 7 Step one, recognizing letters.

Speaker 18 Let's think about the alphabet for a second.

Speaker 35 Sometimes letters of the alphabet are made with straight lines.

Speaker 38 Sometimes they're squiggly.

Speaker 14 And some of the letters look very similar to other letters. A lowercase b is the same as a lowercase d except backwards.

Speaker 14 Uppercase P and uppercase R are the same except R has a fancy little leg sticking out.

Speaker 21 It takes time to tell the difference between all these different shapes.

Speaker 7 Step two, matching letters with sounds.

Speaker 21 So once you can tell the difference between a B and a D.

Speaker 7 An uppercase B looks like an uppercase D wearing a belt.

Speaker 14 Oh, you are so right.

Speaker 30 So once you can tell them apart, you can understand that they make different sounds.

Speaker 27 B makes a bu-buh bu sound.

Speaker 7 And D makes a duh duh duh sound.

Speaker 44 Then comes step three:

Speaker 29 sounding out words. That means you take what you've learned about the sounds letters make and put them together.

Speaker 34 So let's take the word B

Speaker 17 A T.

Speaker 7 You've learned the letter B makes a B sound.

Speaker 21 A makes an A sound.

Speaker 7 And T makes a T sound.

Speaker 4 So you look at B A T and you sound it out.

Speaker 17 B A T

Speaker 17 B A T Bat.

Speaker 37 And if you see the word C A T,

Speaker 18 you can do the same thing.

Speaker 40 That's decoding. When you're learning to read this way, you'll start with simple words like these.

Speaker 7 Like dog or rag or fan.

Speaker 3 Right, simple three letter words.

Speaker 26 Then you'll start to get longer words to decode.

Speaker 33 And here's where your previous knowledge of words comes in.

Speaker 7 Let's say you see the word W-A-T-E-R.

Speaker 38 You might sound it out like this. W

Speaker 38 A

Speaker 38 T

Speaker 17 E

Speaker 17 E R

Speaker 17 W A T E E R Water.

Speaker 7 But your brain will say, water

Speaker 7 is not a word I know.

Speaker 28 So you'll look at that A and say, huh, okay, that A can make different sounds.

Speaker 39 Not always A.

Speaker 3 Could it be

Speaker 17 water?

Speaker 42 Yes, water. And the further you get in your decoding journey, you'll start to learn some of the very confusing combos that English uses.

Speaker 4 For example, what makes the f

Speaker 45 sound?

Speaker 17 F.

Speaker 37 Right. But you can also make the f sound by using the letters P and H together.

Speaker 7 P plus H equals F.

Speaker 42 Or in the word laugh, which is spelled L-A-U-G-H, where is the F sound coming from?

Speaker 38 It's from the letters G and H.

Speaker 7 G plus H equals F.

Speaker 19 Unless you're spelling the word ghost, which is G-H-O-S-T,

Speaker 27 and in this case, G plus H equals G.

Speaker 35 G is right.

Speaker 14 Learning to read English is hard, but being taught how to decode words step by step paired with a good knowledge of lots of words has been proven by scientists to be the best way to learn to read.

Speaker 7 Yeah, there's been lots and lots of research done over the years.

Speaker 26 They've looked at learning at every level in different languages and have compared different teaching methods. And the research shows that being able to decode words is key.

Speaker 3 You can't be a good reader without being good at decoding words.

Speaker 7 Scientists have also looked at what happens in your brain when you learn to read.

Speaker 33 At first, your brain takes the slower route of breaking down each word into its parts.

Speaker 14 But the more you do this and the more comfortable you get, your brain starts to do it almost automatically.

Speaker 7 Yeah, after a while, your brain recognizes the words so quickly that you don't need to sound them out anymore.

Speaker 42 By the time you're a really good reader, you actually know tens of thousands of words instantly on site.

Speaker 28 You don't have to figure them out.

Speaker 40 You just know them in a split second.

Speaker 27 It's pretty cool.

Speaker 33 So Anna, was learning to read easy or hard for you?

Speaker 7 So learning to read for me was kind of confusing because I learned to read obviously in like first grade and kindergarten and I felt like I could read

Speaker 7 and that I was a strong reader.

Speaker 7 But as like I grew up, I realized that it was actually hard for me to sound out words and that instant sight word that you were talking about, I didn't didn't have a lot of those.

Speaker 7 And it would take me a long time to read because I would have to sound out each word, even words that I should know.

Speaker 46 Yeah.

Speaker 18 How, what grade were you in when you figured out like, oh wait, maybe reading is not a thing that is easy for me to do?

Speaker 7 Pretty early. My mom always used to make us read like 30 minutes a day.
And that was always really hard for me.

Speaker 7 And I would always just be like looking at the clock, wanting it to go away because it was just so frustrating for me. So I didn't know necessarily that something was wrong with my reading.

Speaker 7 I just thought I didn't like to read.

Speaker 46 Got it.

Speaker 30 So do you remember being taught how to read?

Speaker 7 I remember a lot of it being independent.

Speaker 7 Our teachers assigning us different levels and then kind of giving us books, maybe working in small groups to read these books that were placed next to pictures.

Speaker 7 I would say that I more learned picture and word memory than actually sounding outwards. We would see a picture of a cat and then C-A-T

Speaker 7 and be told that cat equals this picture. So then we would, or they wanted our like brains to automatically be able to recognize cat as C-A-T from picture and word recognition.

Speaker 28 So it was kind of like you were being taught to skip the sounding out part and kind of go right to the sight word part.

Speaker 7 Yes, exactly.

Speaker 27 Got it.

Speaker 30 And what grade are you in now?

Speaker 7 I'm in ninth grade, so freshman in high school.

Speaker 30 And when did reading become easier for you?

Speaker 7 Reading never really became easier. I never saw it something that was hard necessarily.
I just saw it kind of as something I didn't like.

Speaker 7 But as I, this year especially, I've realized that I actually just have trouble reading. It's not that I don't like it.

Speaker 7 It's that it's frustrating for me because I never really learned how to read and decode properly. So now this year, it's just reading in general, my relationship with it has became so much better.

Speaker 37 That is great.

Speaker 28 And you are very much not alone.

Speaker 41 It turns out that a lot of kids were not taught how to decode words, even though that's been proven to be the best way to learn to read.

Speaker 19 We're going to hear more about that in a minute.

Speaker 38 But first, we have something else for your ears to break down.

Speaker 33 Not a word, but a

Speaker 33 mystery sound.

Speaker 21 You ready for the mystery sound, Anna?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 33 All right, right, here it is.

Speaker 17 Hmm.

Speaker 4 Do you want to hear it again?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 35 What are your thoughts?

Speaker 7 I think that's the sound of pages being flipped.

Speaker 17 Hmm.

Speaker 40 Very good, I guess.

Speaker 33 We'll hear it again after the credits.

Speaker 18 See if you feel the same way or you have a new guess and we'll hear the answer.

Speaker 22 So stick around.

Speaker 14 We're working on an episode about how creatures would evolve on other planets.

Speaker 26 So we want you to do a little dreaming with us.

Speaker 22 Imagine you find life on another planet.

Speaker 40 How would that life greet you?

Speaker 21 What would it sound like in their language to say hi?

Speaker 3 Would they even have a language or would they greet you another way?

Speaker 18 Anna, if you found a living creature on another planet, How do you imagine they would say hi?

Speaker 7 I imagine that they would say hi in a very different way that we say hi. I think that a lot of animals that I've seen say hi to each other more by going up to each other and touching each other.

Speaker 7 So I imagine this new creature saying hi to another creature by going up to it, maybe wagging their tail.

Speaker 12 I love that.

Speaker 41 Maybe a big hug?

Speaker 6 Yes, maybe.

Speaker 28 Well listeners, we want to hear how you imagine an alien creature would say hi.

Speaker 21 Record yourself and send it to us at brainson.org slash contact. While you're there, you can also send us mystery sounds, drawings, and questions.

Speaker 7 Like this one.

Speaker 8 My question is: how do hurricanes form?

Speaker 36 You can find an answer to that question on our Moment of Um podcast.

Speaker 21 It's a daily dose of facts and curiosity you can find wherever you listen to Brains On.

Speaker 16 Again, that's brainson.org/slash contact.

Speaker 7 And keep listening.

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Speaker 7 You're listening listening to Brands on from APM Studios.

Speaker 17 I'm Anna.

Speaker 22 And I'm Molly.

Speaker 14 Okay, so we just heard about the best ways to learn to read according to lots and lots of research.

Speaker 7 I love lots and lots of research. So helpful.

Speaker 21 I know.

Speaker 43 So you'd think teachers would be all about these findings, that they'd be teaching everyone to read, starting by learning the letters, then sounding things out and going from there.

Speaker 7 But that's not always what's happening. To find out more, we talked with someone who knows a lot about this.

Speaker 5 Hi, I'm Emily Hanford. I'm a reporter at American Public Media and I cover education.

Speaker 7 Emily made a podcast called Sold a Story.

Speaker 18 It's about how lots of kids were having trouble learning to read.

Speaker 41 Emily found out that these kids were being taught in a way that just wasn't working.

Speaker 16 It all started when she was talking to different parents who kept telling her the same story.

Speaker 5 And the story goes like this. My kid entered school and I I knew something wasn't quite right and I went to the teacher and the teacher said, don't worry about it, it'll be fine.

Speaker 5 And a lot of cases, things weren't fine.

Speaker 21 Sometimes the kids seemed like they could read at first.

Speaker 14 Books with simple words and lots of pictures.

Speaker 43 But as the words in the book got more complicated and the pictures went away, the kid would struggle.

Speaker 7 Sometimes the kid had memorized words that they'd seen lots of times before, but they couldn't figure out new words.

Speaker 20 Emily says, Many of these kids felt sad or angry or frustrated.

Speaker 5 And it was having an impact on their ability to learn in other subject areas like math and science and social studies. And in a lot of cases, they were starting to really not like school.

Speaker 5 They didn't want to go to school. They were being really resistant.
And it was all becoming really, really hard.

Speaker 7 She wondered what was going on.

Speaker 21 She couldn't figure it out until she talked to one kid in particular and something clicked.

Speaker 5 I was asking her what she remembered about being taught to read. And she said to me, the teacher would show me a picture of a cat and then point to the word and say, here's the word cat.

Speaker 5 And then if this little girl didn't know a word in a book she was trying to read, the teacher told her to guess based on the picture.

Speaker 5 And I remember her telling me that and being struck by that description.

Speaker 33 Emily thought it was strange that this girl was being taught to memorize each word or to guess, but not to sound out the words.

Speaker 21 We're going to call this approach the whole word way of reading, because instead of sounding words out letter by letter, you're trying to figure out the whole word.

Speaker 7 As opposed to the sound it out or decoding method where you start by sounding out the letters.

Speaker 29 Right.

Speaker 4 And the more Emily looked into it, the more she saw that this whole word way of teaching kids was everywhere.

Speaker 21 Classes all around the country were telling students to memorize a word and what it looks like. And if they didn't know a word, they should guess based on what would make sense.

Speaker 5 The problem is, you're not going to be right that much of the time. Just guessing at a few of the words on the page can really make the whole meaning of the story seem different.

Speaker 7 Like say you're reading a story.

Speaker 43 And you see a sentence full of words you don't know.

Speaker 14 So you make some guesses based on the first letters you see.

Speaker 7 Maybe you think the sentence says, it's dinner and a bunch of bears are invited. They're bringing plates and cups and one of them shared the napkins.

Speaker 34 You'd think you're reading a story about some very polite grizzly bears.

Speaker 34 Oh, look!

Speaker 6 The bears are at the door! Oh, good.

Speaker 5 The table is ready.

Speaker 20 We'll be having duck confit, Nissois salad, and a tardo frame was for dessert.

Speaker 40 Oh look!

Speaker 11 They brought fine china and crystal glasses.

Speaker 20 And these napkins, these napkins, are they linen?

Speaker 20 Absolutely exquisite.

Speaker 14 But really, the sentence didn't actually say, it's dinner and a bunch of bears are invited.

Speaker 30 They're bringing plates and cups and one of them shared the napkins.

Speaker 7 It actually said, it's dinner and a bunch of bears are invading. They're breaking plates and cups and one of them shredded the napkins.

Speaker 47 No no! Bears are at the door!

Speaker 15 Goodness, they're eating the duck-hon tea and the Nisswa salad.

Speaker 6 Oh no, not the tarte frambois!

Speaker 15 That was for dessert!

Speaker 17 No!

Speaker 16 Oh, and they're breaking the fine china and the crystals.

Speaker 15 And they've shredded the linen napkins. Oh,

Speaker 15 not the linen napkins. Anything but the linen napkins.

Speaker 14 If you were just guessing those words using the first few letters, it would be pretty easy to make this kind of mistake.

Speaker 48 After all, the words invite and invade, bringing and breaking, shared and shred, they look kind of similar at first.

Speaker 34 Emily says once she realized this, it started making sense why so many kids were having a tough time.

Speaker 7 Students could guess words if they were reading a simple book.

Speaker 43 But as the books got more complicated and had fewer pictures, the kids who had been reading okay before suddenly couldn't figure things out.

Speaker 7 So why weren't teachers seeing this? Why were they still teaching this whole word way? Especially when lots and lots of research said the decoding way was better.

Speaker 29 To understand that, you have to realize that for a long, long time, we had no idea how a kid learned to read.

Speaker 21 There were lots of different ideas, but we did not have strong research telling us what worked.

Speaker 7 The whole word way of teaching has been around for a long time, all the way back to when public schools started. And it got really popular.

Speaker 21 And it made sense to a lot of teachers.

Speaker 40 In fact, Emily thinks the reason so many teachers loved the whole word approach was because it seemed like it helped kids skip the hard part of reading, the part where you have to slowly sound out each word.

Speaker 5 They wanted kids to get to the good part. And the good part is being able to read a book and understand it and really enjoy it, really love it.

Speaker 5 And so I think with really good intentions, a lot of teachers wanted to help kids get to the good part.

Speaker 7 It seemed like it helped kids start reading whole words faster.

Speaker 14 So the whole word approach was really popular in schools.

Speaker 21 And then scientists started doing more of those studies we mentioned earlier.

Speaker 7 And they found that sounding things out was actually a way better way to teach kids to read.

Speaker 14 But a lot of schools and educators were already super invested in the whole word approach, and they didn't want to change what they thought was working.

Speaker 14 It wasn't until decades later, after lots and lots of research came out and books were written about this and reporters like Emily told this story that some schools started rethinking how they taught kids to read.

Speaker 5 So I think things are changing.

Speaker 5 There are people in state legislatures across the country who are passing laws that are saying schools need to teach kids how to read based on all of the scientific research.

Speaker 5 They're giving money for teachers to get training, for schools to buy new books and materials. I think it's an exciting moment.

Speaker 7 But a lot of kids and grown-ups were taught the whole word way of reading, and they might still have a hard time reading.

Speaker 49 So the first thing you have to understand is you're not dumb.

Speaker 33 That's Kareem Weaver.

Speaker 27 He knows a lot about kids and reading.

Speaker 49 I know it may feel like it because everything's moving so fast around you and you're trying and you've tried hard and it's like you just can't get it. That's not it.

Speaker 49 You need to find somebody, some adult that's willing to help.

Speaker 30 Kareem runs a nonprofit focused on helping kids learn how to read.

Speaker 41 And he used to teach fourth and fifth grade.

Speaker 7 He says, even if reading isn't fun for you, that's okay. But it's still an important skill to have.

Speaker 49 What you do with it is up to you. And whether you like it or not is up to you.
But you'll be a better worker or business owner or student or husband or wife or neighbor or whatever. if you can read.

Speaker 49 And I want you to be able to read the job application. I want you to be able to read your paperwork.
I want want you to be able to read the instructions.

Speaker 49 When that sign says stop, I want you to know what it means.

Speaker 42 Basically, don't give up on becoming a good reader if you've had trouble.

Speaker 37 You might just need some different instruction.

Speaker 7 Kareem is also a parent, and he has some advice for parents who want to help.

Speaker 40 He recommends a book called 100 Easy Lessons, which you can find a link to in our show notes.

Speaker 14 And he says it's very important to test kids early for learning differences like dyslexia.

Speaker 16 That's when a person's brain can have special challenges learning to decode words.

Speaker 34 We have a whole episode about dyslexia if you want to learn more.

Speaker 40 Once Kareem's daughter got tested, she was able to get help and now she's thriving.

Speaker 7 That sounds a lot like my story.

Speaker 42 Right.

Speaker 21 You mentioned earlier that you had some trouble with reading.

Speaker 30 And your mom, like Kareem, is a teacher and she came along with you today.

Speaker 34 So we thought that maybe she would join us for this next section.

Speaker 35 Hi, Susie.

Speaker 17 Hi, mom.

Speaker 50 Hi, Anna. Molly, thanks so much for having me on the show today.

Speaker 21 Well, thank you for being here.

Speaker 4 Susie, what grade do you teach?

Speaker 50 I teach first grade.

Speaker 37 Susie and Anna, when did it finally click, like what was happening with Anna?

Speaker 43 That it wasn't that she just didn't like reading, but she was like really struggling.

Speaker 50 So after just kind of years, in all honesty, last year, which was the year before ninth grade, she had a reading list and she came to me and I had noticed that she wasn't reading it.

Speaker 50 And I was frustrated because I thought she just didn't want to read it and what was the problem.

Speaker 50 And then she told me that she actually was having a lot of trouble reading and it was really hard for her to read the words and read the books.

Speaker 50 And so then I really wanted to figure out a way to help her because I realized that it was a problem and that she needed help.

Speaker 37 So Anna, how was that when you went to your mom this past summer?

Speaker 43 How did that feel to you?

Speaker 7 When I went to my mom and we agreed that I needed some sort of help to really thrive reading, I felt super relieved.

Speaker 7 I felt relieved because I thought like something was wrong with me and that I just didn't like reading and I just wasn't that smart.

Speaker 7 I really realized how I struggled reading in front of the class and that was always something I never wanted to do.

Speaker 7 I was always so embarrassed because sometimes kids would laugh when I would mispronounce words. And I always have wanted to love reading, like my role models, like my mom, my dad, and my brother do.

Speaker 7 They always would be talking about books at dinner.

Speaker 7 And my older brother would always brag about how many pages he read and I would always be like, how is that possible to read that many pages in like a short amount of time?

Speaker 7 And also, how is it possible to like reading?

Speaker 7 I really realized that I did not know how to decode words at all when I went over with my mom the sounds of each letter in the alphabet and I literally just did not know them.

Speaker 7 I didn't realize there was an important difference between i, the i sound,

Speaker 7 and e, the e sound.

Speaker 7 So when I found out that it was actually something wrong with how I sounded out words, I was so relieved and hopeful that I saw it a chance to love reading and made me understand why people love reading.

Speaker 7 It's because they have a different experience while reading than I did.

Speaker 42 So Susie, I'm wondering,

Speaker 22 how

Speaker 43 is being a mom similar to being a teacher?

Speaker 21 And how is it different?

Speaker 27 So like when you saw Anna struggling with reading, how does that compare with the kids in your classroom?

Speaker 50 I think in both cases, just with my kids and my students, I definitely think of my kids also, just in the classroom.

Speaker 50 I want them all to reach their full potential and to believe in themselves and not think that it's something that's wrong with them if they're having trouble, but it's something that we can work together to become stronger.

Speaker 7 Did my struggles with reading change anything about how you teach reading to your students?

Speaker 50 So it absolutely did.

Speaker 50 It really made me focus even more on decoding strategies and making sure everyone of my first graders have the skills themselves to decode any word and every word that they come across.

Speaker 4 And Susie, were you taught the whole word method of teaching reading?

Speaker 50 So when I went to teaching school, when I went to grad school, I was much more taught the whole whole word or whole language way of teaching reading, where there wasn't as much emphasis on decoding or sounding the words out.

Speaker 50 And I've really flipped

Speaker 50 my teaching to really focus so much more on those decoding and the sounding out words.

Speaker 14 Are you seeing that flip happening with other schools and teachers?

Speaker 50 I am. I mean, I talk to teachers all the time at different schools and about this and sold a story I think really articulated

Speaker 50 what teachers are seeing, how different teachers have learned. And so it's really helped me just even learn.
I think as a teacher, you're always learning more. And so for me, it's been pretty.

Speaker 50 amazing and great to really learn

Speaker 50 all these this information, all this research, and then transition that and put it into my teaching.

Speaker 21 That's amazing.

Speaker 22 I think it's really good for kids to know too that your teachers are learning all the time and they're figuring out the best way to teach.

Speaker 42 And

Speaker 28 you never stop learning, even when you're a grownup.

Speaker 50 Exactly.

Speaker 16 And Anna, I would love to know what you want to say to kids listening to this, because I'm sure that we have a lot of listeners who've had struggles with reading

Speaker 31 and it might make them feel bad.

Speaker 43 Like it, you know, you said you felt like maybe you just weren't smart, which is clearly not true.

Speaker 34 So what do you want to tell our listeners listening today?

Speaker 7 I want every listener to know that even though we hear from parents and teachers and friends that reading is this great fun thing, that it can also be really frustrating and that you're not alone or you're not being lazy or you're not bored or unsmart if you really just don't want to read.

Speaker 7 It's just because it's frustrating when you're first learning. And even if you're older, you're still like learning and it's not your fault.

Speaker 7 And it's like a process, the tutoring process that I'm in right now for reading and how it can be really frustrating and how it can seem tedious. And it's just like improving is hard.

Speaker 7 And it's not this easy switch that will occur. It's, you really have to work and you have to engrave this in your brain.
And I think it's really important.

Speaker 7 And I'm still learning how to do this, but stay patient and really realize that the end goal will be worth it.

Speaker 50 And also just the most important thing that Anna did, I think she asked for help.

Speaker 50 And I think that that's something that whether you're in first grade, whether you're a ninth grader, whether you're a grown-up, if you're having trouble and you're not sure why and you don't know why these things aren't coming together, that it's so important just to ask for help.

Speaker 50 You can ask your grown-up, you can ask a teacher. But I think that that's the way that we were able to help Anna is because she spoke up and she could say, I need help.

Speaker 7 I'm so glad that my mom was so helpful and supportive and she really reassured me that it wasn't my fault. And I'm so thankful that my mom was so helpful and supportive in the process.

Speaker 50 And I'm just so proud of Anna for coming and saying that she needed help, but then also being willing to put in the work that she needs to put in to go through all this, to really connect those sounds with the letters.

Speaker 50 And she has really been committed. And so I'm very proud of her for doing that.
And I'm just, I'm so excited and happy for her that we're figuring this out.

Speaker 30 Human brains are usually pretty good at learning to move and communicate without much help.

Speaker 7 But reading is different because it's such a new skill for our species.

Speaker 14 Research says the best way to learn to read is to start by learning the letters and the sounds that go with them and then sound out words letter by letter until you get so good your brain can recognize words super fast.

Speaker 7 Not everyone was taught to read this way though.

Speaker 40 If you want to get better at reading, there are lots of ways to do it.

Speaker 16 Just ask for help.

Speaker 21 That's it for this episode of Brains On.

Speaker 7 This episode was produced by Molly Bloom, Rosie DuPont, Anna Goldfield, Aron Woldeslassi, Anna Wegel, Nico Gonzalez-Whistler, Molly Quinlan, Ruby Guthrie, and Mark Sanchez.

Speaker 23 Many super duper special thanks to Emily Hanford for her reporting and helping us with this episode.

Speaker 21 We highly recommend listening to her whole series, Sold a Story.

Speaker 23 You can find it wherever you listen to Brains On or at soldastory.org. Our editors are Sandon Totten and Shayla Farzan.

Speaker 23 This episode was sound designed by Rachel Breeze and we had engineering help from Gary O'Keeffe and Derek Ramirez.

Speaker 21 Beth Perlman is our executive producer.

Speaker 23 The executives in charge of APM Studios are Chandra Cavanti, Alex Shaffert, and Joanne Griffith. Special thanks to Susie Brandmeyer.

Speaker 7 Brains On is a non-profit public radio program.

Speaker 14 There are lots of ways to support the show.

Speaker 21 Head to brainson.org.

Speaker 7 While you're there, you can send in questions.

Speaker 14 And fan art. We love getting fan art from you.

Speaker 7 You can also subscribe to our SmartyPass.

Speaker 22 When you do, you'll get ad-free episodes and super special bonus stuff.

Speaker 14 Smartypass.org.

Speaker 6 Okay,

Speaker 18 Anna, are you ready to hear the mystery sound again?

Speaker 7 Yes, I'm really excited to see what it is. Me too.

Speaker 44 Any new thoughts?

Speaker 7 I don't know. I'm still sticking with my page flip theory.

Speaker 26 Very good theory.

Speaker 30 I have no idea what it is either.

Speaker 21 And that's what I thought too. So let's see if our brains got it.

Speaker 33 Here is the answer.

Speaker 24 Hi, I'm Samuel. And I'm Maryam.
And that was the sound of us flipping the pages of a book.

Speaker 17 Hey! Yay!

Speaker 37 Anna, so good.

Speaker 26 Excellent ears.

Speaker 22 Nice work.

Speaker 30 Now it's time for the Brains Honor Roll.

Speaker 21 These are the kids who keep this show going with their questions, ideas, mystery sounds, drawings, and high-fives.

Speaker 23 Esme and Cleo from Philadelphia, June and Carrie from Raleigh, North Carolina, Eli from Spokane, Washington, Manny from Fargo, Harrison from Santa Monica, California, Noah from Vancouver, Miles from Tennessee, Maya from Minneapolis, Martha from Forest Lake, Minnesota, Simon from Los Angeles, Wesley and Annalise from Rockford, Illinois, Jason from Cupertino, California, Viola from Seattle, Parker from Dover, Ohio, Christopher from Ashburn, Ashburn, Virginia, Colby, Asher, Wren, and Milo from Belvedere, Illinois, Sam from Exeter, Rhode Island, Poppy from Toronto, Nate and Samantha from Stamford, Connecticut, Kazuki from San Jose, California, Haywood from Richmond, British Columbia, Navi from Olympia, Washington, Julian from Wakefield, Quebec, Cassie from Washington, D.C., Aditya from Big Rapids, Michigan, Eli and Arthur from New York City, Maddie from Brooklyn, New York, Autumn from Floyd, Virginia, Jimmy from Sammamish, Washington, Grace and Seth from Portland, Oregon, Xavier, Hugo, and Tao from Johannesburg, South Africa, DJ from Garnerville, New York, Jonathan from North Andover, Massachusetts, Crudy from Miami, Clark from Pittsburgh, Amelie from Keeley, England, Ryan from Sterling, Massachusetts, Leo from Pittsford, New York, Aurora from Sydney, Australia, Amira and Corbin from Memphis, Tennessee, Reese, Afton, and Drake from Harrisburg, South Dakota, Noe and Ollie from Spokane, Washington, Logan and Mila from West Midlands, England, Leo from Manchester, UK, Jaden from Simi Valley, California, Evelyn and Mid from Bangor, Maine, Elliott from Mount Airy, North Carolina, T.

Speaker 23 Bow from Hillsboro, California, Lucas from Flowery Branch, Georgia, Jack from Benicia, California, Hazel from San Carlos, California, Vichet from Frisco, Texas, Elliot from San Francisco, Corbin from Gresham, Oregon, Charlie, Daniel, and Liam from St.

Speaker 23 Louis, Dulcie from Hobart, Australia, Matthew from San Diego, Phoebe and Owen from Santa Barbara, California, Aria from St.

Speaker 23 Louis, Axel from Perth, Australia, Noah and Sammy from Decker, Indiana, Sophia from Bishkek, Kirkestan, Brendan, Donovan, Catalina, Lucia, Elena, and Isabella from Kailua, Hawaii, Ellie and Henry from Shoreview, Minnesota, Dexter and Phoenix from Yorba Linda, California, and Ada from St.

Speaker 23 Paul, Minnesota.

Speaker 19 We'll be back next week with more answers to your questions.

Speaker 7 Thanks for listening.

Speaker 7 I don't know what to do. I'm always in the dark.
The swecking dance shore smells like a dark bar.

Speaker 51 Downy rinse fights stubborn odors in just one wash. When impossible odors get stuck in, rinse it out.