I started Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Wolf several years ago, only to get bogged down and abandon it shortly thereafter. During a particularly productive period of reading this past spring, I decided to pick it up once more. Unfortunately, I again fell victim to the dense content and made very slow progress at first. However, after weeks of steady reading, I was rewarded with a renewed appreciation for the complexity of the reading brain - past, present, and future.
Although Wolfe is a neuroscientist, she titled her book Proust and the Squid because she acknowledges that reading is both art and science. When we read, neurons in our brain fire like the neurons in the humble squid, yet reading also shapes our emotional and intellectual lives just as the French novelist Marcel Proust espoused. In working with students with dyslexia, it is easy to get caught up in vowels, syllables, and letter formation and forget that the ultimate goal of instruction is to give kids access to the world of ideas.
In the first part of the book, Wolfe explains in fascinating detail the many layers at work as we read: the behavior of reading is coordinated by the cognitive processes that result from the neurological structures determined by our genes and environment. Wolfe also reminds the reader that almost everyone learns to speak but reading is not innate. It must be learned by each generation. From an evolutionary view point, literacy is a relatively new invention. She explains how old neurological structures must be repurposed for the task for reading. This is made possible by the plasticity of our brains and their capacity for automaticity and specialization. This peek inside the brain gave me renewed appreciation for just how much work my students are doing as they read. Also, I’ve found it helpful to explain a bit about the history of literacy to parents who are coming to grips with their child having dyslexia. When you realize how our brains must physically change to acquire literacy, you understand that it is a miracle that anyone learns to read at all!
In the last part of the book, Wolfe explains the timeline of literacy acquisition in a child and discusses what goes wrong when an individual cannot learn to read or learn to read well. As a mother to young children, I found the section on early language acquisition especially interesting. It was good to be reminded that so much more happens during nightly story time than just cuddling. I also found it helpful to remember that children are not biologically ready to read until after age 5 due to the myelination of their brains. As a professional in the field of dyslexia, I found the section on dyslexia refreshing. Wolfe does not attempt a concise definition; instead, she embraces the messy history of dyslexia research and attempts to categorize it in a helpful way. Sometimes, I can get frustrated when a child clearly has an unexpected difficulty in learning to read yet does not fit perfectly into the “dyslexia box.” This chapter was a good reminder of the nuanced and individual nature of dyslexia.
I find myself sharing anecdotes from this book at parties and thinking about Wolfe’s ideas throughout my days as I interact with parents, teachers, and students. I know that I could re-read this book many times and learn new things about the richness of our reading brains. Although not for casual reading, I recommend Proust and the Squid to those interested in how discoveries from neuroscience can help students.
