Category Archives: reading to children

Reading and Hearing

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OpenStax, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

by Debbie Burke

We often talk here at TKZ about the importance of reading throughout life.

Reading to young children is well recognized to benefit their early brain development.

Reading instructs us through school. It guides us in our daily lives and careers.

Reading keeps the mind sharp as we age.

I just learned a new reason why reading is important: for hearing.

My good friend Dr. Betty Kuffel is my favorite source for medical knowledge. Her husband has profound hearing loss and hearing aids aren’t helping. He will soon have a surgery for a cochlear implant. Betty described the procedure:

An array of electrodes within a thin wire is threaded through a hole drilled through the outer skull and into the cochlea behind and above the ear. The tiny wire follows inner contours of the cochlea with anatomy resembling a snail shell. It bypasses the damaged area reaching the hearing nerve that carries impulses to the brain. Then the surgeon buzzes out a shallow crater of bone for placement of the magnetized device with a microchip in it. Once secured, the scalp is sutured and after a couple of weeks of healing the device is activated. An external rechargeable sound processor with two microphones is worn behind the ear like a typical hearing aid that connects magnetically to the implant. Amazing technology.

BruceBlaus, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

However, the implant isn’t plug and play. The brain has to be retrained to use the device. Instead of the normal neural pathways between the ear (which hears sounds) and the brain (which interprets the meaning and appropriate reaction to those sounds), this rewiring makes new connections.

Here’s the interesting part Betty added:

The training consists of reading aloud as the primary trainer. You see the print, read and the brain processes the visual + verbal input.

In this article, audiologist Grace Sturdivant of the University of Mississippi Medical Center explains two crucial connections between hearing and the brain:

One is called Cross-modal Plasticity. Don’t let that term bog you down – it means that when the area of your brain which is purposed for processing sound (the auditory cortex) is not being stimulated adequately (i.e., when hearing loss is present), a well-functioning system like vision will begin to recruit that area to process its own input.

…the second brain change I’ll discuss is Cortical Resource Reallocation. Even in these mild, sloping hearing loss cases, auditory cortex activity is decreased and frontal lobe activity is increased on listening tasks…The frontal and pre-frontal areas are critical for working memory and executive function. When hearing loss is present and you are straining to hearing and understand someone in a challenging environment, your frontal lobe is loaded down with trying to understand what someone is saying in that moment. We call this “effortful listening.” This leaves less ability for that frontal lobe to help you remember what someone was saying after you walk away from the conversation.

In other words, over time as the ear no longer functions as it’s supposed to, the brain also loses those neural transmission pathways.

Sturdivant expands on the health effects:

…People with severe, untreated hearing loss are five times more likely to develop dementia…adults with untreated hearing loss develop cognitive decline 3.2 years sooner than people with normal hearing; or than people with dementia and severe untreated hearing loss have rates of cognitive decline 30-40% faster than dementia patients with normal hearing.

According to this article from Johns Hopkins Medicine:

Getting used to the cochlear implant takes a while. Eventually, the sound quality will change as the brain learns the stimulation patterns that the device provides. Most patients notice improving sound quality during the first three to 12 months.

This article from Alber Hearing Services outlines some steps in auditory rehabilitation:

Listening to these everyday noises and naming them out loud helps your brain connect the new signals from your implant to what they actually are. Watching TV with captions turned on or following along with lyrics while listening to music can also build stronger connections between sound and meaning.

More rehab techniques from Cochlear Implant Help:

Reading and listening to a fully abridged audio book helps the brain to make the connection between the words heard and words seen. By listening and looking at the words the connection can be made. To make this exercise more challenging, remove the visual and focus on the auditory input. This helps build one’s ability to understand what is being stated.

With sound and visual print correlation, the brain adjusts and soon words are clear and
meaningful. Each person is different but over 80% hearing restoration can be accomplished.

However, the National Institutes of Health reports 29-42% of people with implants express some level of regret.

Of course I’m wishing Betty’s husband an excellent outcome with improved function and no regrets.

I have some hearing loss, but the body adapts in amazing ways. Without being conscious of it, I’ve developed a little skill in lip reading.

Also, for about a year, I’ve been turning on closed captioning for TV and online videos. Will this combination of simultaneously reading and listening help keep my brain working? I don’t know.

But I figure it’s worth a try. Can’t hurt, might help.

~~~

TKZers: Do you think reading helps your hearing? Do you read visually (print books or ebooks)? Do you listen to audiobooks? Or both?

Reading Words of Wisdom

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I’m a lifelong reader, beginning with the Dick and Jane books in first grade, and being inspired by my mother’s avid reading habits. One of my earliest memories is of her reading a sci-fi thriller with a giant spider on the cover. As a grade schooler I read books about World War II and astronomy, and avidly devoured fiction like Silver Chief, Dog of the North, Call of the Wild, White Fang, King of the Wind (the first book I bought, at a school book sale), and Misty of Chincoteague.

Reading got me into trouble at school. In fifth grade I attended a brand-new elementary school that had modular classrooms with sliding walls. One day I snuck out of the back of my math class to go to the school library to, yes, read. Of course, I was found out.

I used to tell that story to students at the libraries I worked at, finishing with, “and look where I ended up.” It always got a laugh, especially from kids who loved to read. But of course, study math, too. I did, especially after my math teacher suggested to my parents to have my eyes tested. I learned I was myopic (which was why I struggled with math from the back of the class room).

The reading continued. My mother loaned me her set of Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom novels one summer, and during my sophomore year in high school I devoured thrillers like The Crash of ’79 and Black Sunday.

When I met my future wife at a job we both had while in high school, one of the many things that drew me to her was that she loved to read.

Reading is not only fundamental, it’s foundational to who I am, and, I strongly suspect, to most if not all of you.

With that in mind, today’s Words of Wisdom looks at reading. Clare Langley-Hawthorne shares the magic Sherlock Holmes worked on her as a young reader. Debbie Burke discusses the legendary Nancy Drew’s impact on her and many others. Finally, Sue Coletta discusses some of the important benefits of reading. You can read the full versions of each of the excerpts, linked from their respective original posting dates.

Luckily, both my boys are great readers (so we get to take lots of books with us!) and I love how we can now discuss books we’ve all read and how I can give them recommendations now that don’t (usually) provoke a whole lot of eye-rolling.  I also still read to them every night and have recently started introducing them to Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories.

A few pages into the Hound of the Baskervilles, however, and my boys were already terrified (not a good idea just before bed!) so we started instead with A Study in Scarlet and have just recently moved on to The Sign of Four. What is amazing to me is how, despite the old-fashioned language and pace, both my boys are already totally hooked – and I think it’s not really the mystery that draws them in but the character of Holmes himself. It really is amazing to think that a character which in many ways is such a product of his times can be still so intriguing over a hundred years later. As a mum of course, I do have to explain his drug use and the smoking…but, hey, I think of these as…er…’teachable’ moments!

I came to Sherlock Holmes quite late  (I was well into my twenties before I read my first Holmes’ story) – compared to my husband who devoured all the stories when he was in the 5th and 6th grade at school in Australia. Though I enjoyed the stories, I don’t think I appreciated the mesmerising qualities of Sherlock Holmes as a character until I started reading the stories aloud to my boys. I’ve been interrogated by them on every aspect of his character – from whether he was based on a real person, to why he knows so much, to how, on earth, he can make such amazing deductions…He’s like a super-hero in many ways but also an enigmatic and  flawed hero – which is what, I suspect, makes him so intriguing.

I’m looking forward to continuing to read these stories to my boys and then, I hope, handing the books over to them to read for themselves. To me, one of the great pleasures of being a parent, is passing on a love of reading. I already see each of my twins developing their own reading preferences and am glad that, at least in so far as Sherlock Holmes is concerned, they are gaining an appreciation for mysteries:)

So – tell me, are you are Sherlock Holmes fan?

Clare Langley-Hawthorne—March 31, 2014

 

Nancy Drew was the original Super Girl—independent, confident, smart. She was competent to handle any challenge, fearless in the face of danger, and resourceful at solving problems decades before MacGyver came along. She drove motorboats, rode horses, and played tennis better than her boyfriend, Ned Nickerson. The girl sleuth never backed down from threats and brought villains to justice.

She is credited as an early influence on many girls who grew up to be accomplished, notable women, including Sandra Day O’Connor, Oprah Winfrey, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Laura Bush.

Credit: www.nancydrewsleuth.com

Nancy’s heroic adventures kept my friends and me up long past bedtime, reading with flashlights under the covers. I remember saving for weeks to buy the latest release when it hit the neighborhood toy store that carried her books. If I recall correctly, the hardbacks in the late 1950s cost around a dollar, a serious investment for a kid earning a dime a week allowance.

Credit: www.nancydrewsleuth.com

Additionally, I devoured the local library’s collection of Nancy’s earlier books published in the 1930s and ’40s, with dark blue boards and cool pen-and-ink illustrations.

The dust jackets on older editions had long since disappeared and, after thousands of check-outs, bindings were often held together by heavy tape.

I didn’t really know what a “roadster” was but I sure wanted a blue roadster convertible just like Nancy’s.

Credit: www.nancydrewsleuth.com

In the 1950s, the books featured lighter blue, tweed-pattern boards with dust jackets.

Credit: www.nancydrewsleuth.com

By the 1960s, the dust jackets disappeared and the spine became bright yellow with illustrations incorporated into the front hardcover.

The last one I remember reading was The Secret of the Golden Pavilion (1959) which took place in the then-exotic locale of Hawaii around the time it became the 50thstate.

Throughout the 30 or so books I read, Nancy remained eternally 18-years-old (16 in earlier versions) but never attended school or college. Her successful attorney father, Carson Drew, encouraged her to pursue all kinds of dangerous adventures but no one ever got murdered.

Nancy’s only job was solving mysteries and she didn’t get paid for her efforts.

Realistic? Not very.

Fun and exciting? Yes!

Nancy solved her first mystery in 1930 (The Secret of the Old Clock) and kept unraveling puzzles in 56 classic hardcovers originally published by Grosset & Dunlap. Simon & Schuster added eight additional books in paperback. A complete set of 64 classics in hardcover sells for over $400. The classic series ended in 2003 with 175 books. Spinoffs continue to the present day, totaling more than 600 books, TV series, video games, and films.

Debbie Burke—April 26, 2019

Reading reduces stress.

A 2009 study by Sussex University showed reading may reduce stress by as much as 68 percent.

“It really doesn’t matter what book you read, by losing yourself in a thoroughly engrossing book you can escape from the worries and stresses of the everyday world and spend a while exploring the domain of the author’s imagination,” cognitive neuropsychologist David Lewis​ told The Telegraph.

Reading helps us relax.

There’s a reason snuggling up with a good book sounds so appealing. Because it is! Reading washes away the stressors of the day as we melt into the pages of a good book.

Reading fiction for fun.

Readers of fiction have increased creativity, empathy, and emotional intelligence. Losing ourselves in a fictional character’s experiences make us more open-minded and allow us to spend time in someone else’s shoes. Thus, readers become better humans than non-readers.

Reading supports self-improvement.

Readers support lifelong learning. One of the best ways to do that is to pick up a book and learn something new. Waving at readers who prefer nonfiction!

In general, read is good for our wellbeing. 

Some of us read to escape reality or imagine worlds beyond our own. Some read to learn new skills—cooking, crafting, creativity—or about real people who intrigue or inspire us. Some read thought-provoking books, some dive into futuristic worlds beyond our imagination. Whatever the reason that brings us to the page, reading is one of the best forms of self-care.

Is reading contagious?

Absolutely! Rather than rattle off statistics, I’ll pose a question. How many books have you bought based on word of mouth? When we see another reader all excited about a new book, we want to feel that way, too. So, what do we do? We check out the book.

When children see their parents reading for fun, it plants the seed for them to become lifelong readers, as well. In adults, if one partner pleasure reads several times per week, it lights a spark in their significant other. My husband never read for pleasure till he married me. When he first took the plunge, he devoured more books per week than I did. Over the years as he built and ran his small engine business, he had less time to read. But he dives between the folds whenever possible. Why? Because he sees how much I enjoy reading, and it’s contagious.

Sue Coletta—August 8, 2022

***

  1. How has reading shaped you?
  2. What was the first book you read that changed you?
  3. Did you read Sherlock Holmes and/or Nancy Drew as a child?
  4. What are some of the benefits of you get from reading?

Is Reading Contagious?

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Science indicates 75 percent of parents wish their children would read for fun more. Yet most parents stop reading aloud once the child learns to read on their own. A report from Scholastic suggests reading out loud to kids throughout their elementary school years inspires them to become bookworms, reading five to seven days per week for fun. More than 40 percent of frequent readers ages six to 11 were read to at home, compared to 13 percent who did not read for fun.

At any age, reading increases intelligence.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

—Dr. Seuss

Diving into a good book opens up a whole world of knowledge. An increase in vocabulary is an obvious result, but it also leads to higher scores on intelligence tests. When children read for fun, it also leads to higher intelligence later in life.

Reading boosts brainpower.

Not only does regular reading make us smarter, but it also increases actual brainpower. Reading regularly improves memory function. Think of it as exercises for the brain. Aging often goes hand-in-hand with a decline in memory and brain function, but regular reading helps slow the process, keeping minds sharper longer, according to research published in Neurology.

Readers are more empathetic.

Being immersed in a story world, caring about characters, helps us relate to others. And so, we’re more aware of another person’s emotions, according to research published in Science Magazine. Interestingly, fiction has a greater impact on empathy than nonfiction.

“Understanding others’ mental states is a crucial skill that enables the complex social relationships that characterize human societies,” David Comer Kidd and Emanuele Castano wrote of their findings.

Reading may help fight Alzheimer’s disease.

Those who engage their brains through reading are 2.5 times less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than those who spend their downtime on less stimulating activities like television. Research suggests exercising the brain helps reduce the risk of developing other brain diseases, as well.

Reading reduces stress.

A 2009 study by Sussex University showed reading may reduce stress by as much as 68 percent.

“It really doesn’t matter what book you read, by losing yourself in a thoroughly engrossing book you can escape from the worries and stresses of the everyday world and spend a while exploring the domain of the author’s imagination,” cognitive neuropsychologist David Lewis​ told The Telegraph.

Reading helps us relax.

There’s a reason snuggling up with a good book sounds so appealing. Because it is! Reading washes away the stressors of the day as we melt into the pages of a good book.

Reading fiction for fun.

Readers of fiction have increased creativity, empathy, and emotional intelligence. Losing ourselves in a fictional character’s experiences make us more open-minded and allow us to spend time in someone else’s shoes. Thus, readers become better humans than non-readers.

Reading supports self-improvement.

Readers support lifelong learning. One of the best ways to do that is to pick up a book and learn something new. Waving at readers who prefer nonfiction!

In general, read is good for our wellbeing. 

Some of us read to escape reality or imagine worlds beyond our own. Some read to learn new skills—cooking, crafting, creativity—or about real people who intrigue or inspire us. Some read thought-provoking books, some dive into futuristic worlds beyond our imagination. Whatever the reason that brings us to the page, reading is one of the best forms of self-care.

Is reading contagious?

Absolutely! Rather than rattle off statistics, I’ll pose a question. How many books have you bought based on word of mouth? When we see another reader all excited about a new book, we want to feel that way, too. So, what do we do? We check out the book.

When children see their parents reading for fun, it plants the seed for them to become lifelong readers, as well. In adults, if one partner pleasure reads several times per week, it lights a spark in their significant other. My husband never read for pleasure till he married me. When he first took the plunge, he devoured more books per week than I did. Over the years as he built and ran his small engine business, he had less time to read. But he dives between the folds whenever possible. Why? Because he sees how much I enjoy reading, and it’s contagious.

TKZers, why do you read? Does your partner read? Do your kids read? What’s the best thing about reading for you?

She may be paranoid, but is she right?

A string of gruesome murders rocks the small town of Alexandria, New Hampshire, with all the victims staged to resemble dead angels, and strange red and pink balloons appearing out of nowhere.

All the clues point to the Romeo Killer’s return. Except one: he died eight years ago.

Paranoid and on edge, Sage’s theory makes no sense. Dead serial killers don’t rise from the grave. Yet she swears he’s here, hungering for the only angel to slip through his grasp—Sage.

With only hours left to live, how can Sage convince her Sheriff husband before the sand in her hourglass runs out? Preorder on Amazon for $1.49

*Though HALOED is Book 5 of the Grafton County Series, it can easily be read as a standalone.

The Magic of Sherlock Holmes

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by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

Spring break is nearly upon us so forgive my rather brief blog post (we are preparing to take my 9 year old twin up for a spot of skiing in the beautiful mountains near us – so things are a little crazy).  Luckily, both my boys are great readers (so we get to take lots of books with us!) and I love how we can now discuss books we’ve all read and how I can give them recommendations now that don’t (usually) provoke a whole lot of eye-rolling.  I also still read to them every night and have recently started introducing them to Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. 

A few pages into the Hound of the Baskervilles, however, and my boys were already terrified (not a good idea just before bed!) so we started instead with A Study in Scarlet and have just recently moved on to The Sign of Four. What is amazing to me is how, despite the old-fashioned language and pace, both my boys are already totally hooked – and I think it’s not really the mystery that draws them in but the character of Holmes himself. It really is amazing to think that a character which in many ways is such a product of his times can be still so intriguing over a hundred years later. As a mum of course, I do have to explain his drug use and the smoking…but, hey, I think of these as…er…’teachable’ moments!

I came to Sherlock Holmes quite late  (I was well into my twenties before I read my first Holmes’ story) – compared to my husband who devoured all the stories when he was in the 5th and 6th grade at school in Australia. Though I enjoyed the stories, I don’t think I appreciated the mesmerising qualities of Sherlock Holmes as a character until I started reading the stories aloud to my boys. I’ve been interrogated by them on every aspect of his character – from whether he was based on a real person, to why he knows so much, to how, on earth, he can make such amazing deductions…He’s like a super-hero in many ways but also an enigmatic and  flawed hero – which is what, I suspect, makes him so intriguing. 

I’m looking forward to continuing to read these stories to my boys and then, I hope, handing the books over to them to read for themselves. To me, one of the great pleasures of being a parent, is passing on a love of reading. I already see each of my twins developing their own reading preferences and am glad that, at least in so far as Sherlock Holmes is concerned, they are gaining an appreciation for mysteries:)

So – tell me, are you are Sherlock Holmes fan? Do you have a particular favourite story? What do you think makes both him (as a character) and Conan Doyle’s stories endure?