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alliehoopes's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
I know I enjoyed this much more than Proust and the Squid but I could not lead an unprompted discussion on it at this point...
MY OWN RATING SCALE BELOW:
1 đŠ This shouldnât be a book, at least in my universe. Throw it away, who even cares. Why am I even spending the time logging that I read it?
1.5 DNF because maybe thereâs a chance there was something good in the part I DNF
2 đ See 2.5 but maybe I was also uncomfortable sitting there or got a papercut or the cover art just sucked. Unpleasant reading experience all around
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2.5 Completely average. Iâm not mad at the time spent with it but not especially grateful for it either. Hopefully I had good snacks. I accept that it could be a 5 for someone else and Iâm happy for them
3 đ I will admit to reading this if someone directly asked but I will not volunteer much to a conversation about it because I didnât really care and would rather be playing Balatro
3.5 This is the other end of âaverageâ. Itâs fine, it has good stuff. Not memorable enough for me to recommend. Not interesting enough to spend time on Google going a lot deeper
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4 đ Good, great, well-liked, Iâm a fanâŚjust not a favorite for a handful of reasons that I can name, and all things canât be your favorites
4.5 Complete enjoyment. Would struggle to say bad things about this book, but maybe it just didnât get me personally in the way others could. I will still have spent time during and after looking up periphery stuff to the book
5 𤯠This will stay with me. I will own a nice copy of this book so that I can touch it and have it in my home. I will consider naming a child after this book. Even when I forget major parts of this book I will still just feel that it is important to me. All the things. Would reread.
srividyaupp's review against another edition
5.0
Dear Fellow Readers,
I feel its only appropriate to share my thoughts as a dialogue, since this epistolary collection was a dialogue, too. When I was young I read to travel. When I entered high school, I felt as though I needed to read to find answers. But in college, I have rediscovered my love of reading to ask questions. Every question in âReader, Come Homeâ has given me something more to seek.
Wolfâs letters encompass all my favorite aspects of reading. The linguist in me thrilled over every reference to neurolinguistics and language acquisition. The bilingual daughter of immigrants felt as though each letter was written to me because finally here is someone who understood when I said we never had much money, but our true wealth has always been in our bookshelves. The social justice warrior craved more dialogue on the conversation of access to literacy in oppressed and impoverished communities that are kept beneath white, elitist thumbs by keeping them from education and travel. And lastly, the science policy analyst that I am becoming saw a path forward in her call to action for research and funding on literacy, technological equity and access and research.
These letters, filled with Wolfâs warmth and wit and passion, filled me with the desire to have these conversations with everyone I know - my young cousins who are discovering books but also have never lived without their trusty iPads, my aunts and uncles who ask me to tell my cousins to read and in the same breath set up an iPhone playing a YouTube video while we eat lunch, my mother who teaches English to neurodiverse learners who have been told their whole lives that reading isnât for them, my friends because soon we will be having and raising our children, and many of us are becoming teachers who will influence how students learn through media and learn from media.
I agree with the criticism that Wolfâs book is written to an erudite, privileged population. I wish the letters would be more accessible and engaging for those of our communities who didnât grow up with books, or havenât read all the white male philosophers and authors Wolf has been raised to recognize as classics. But what I take from her letters is an impetus to make these letters accessible by talking about them with people I interact with. Wolf didnât mean for this book to be an end, but rather a careful and hopeful foundation for an informed beginning in our coming age of integrated technology. So, while this book grounded me and I felt like I had come home, like every beautiful book Iâve read, it has also inspired a wanderlust to travel with the content. I am off on my reading journeys, more aware of how my reading and absorption impact me, and of how the children around me will be impacted by our decisions.
Sincerely,
Sri Vidya
I feel its only appropriate to share my thoughts as a dialogue, since this epistolary collection was a dialogue, too. When I was young I read to travel. When I entered high school, I felt as though I needed to read to find answers. But in college, I have rediscovered my love of reading to ask questions. Every question in âReader, Come Homeâ has given me something more to seek.
Wolfâs letters encompass all my favorite aspects of reading. The linguist in me thrilled over every reference to neurolinguistics and language acquisition. The bilingual daughter of immigrants felt as though each letter was written to me because finally here is someone who understood when I said we never had much money, but our true wealth has always been in our bookshelves. The social justice warrior craved more dialogue on the conversation of access to literacy in oppressed and impoverished communities that are kept beneath white, elitist thumbs by keeping them from education and travel. And lastly, the science policy analyst that I am becoming saw a path forward in her call to action for research and funding on literacy, technological equity and access and research.
These letters, filled with Wolfâs warmth and wit and passion, filled me with the desire to have these conversations with everyone I know - my young cousins who are discovering books but also have never lived without their trusty iPads, my aunts and uncles who ask me to tell my cousins to read and in the same breath set up an iPhone playing a YouTube video while we eat lunch, my mother who teaches English to neurodiverse learners who have been told their whole lives that reading isnât for them, my friends because soon we will be having and raising our children, and many of us are becoming teachers who will influence how students learn through media and learn from media.
I agree with the criticism that Wolfâs book is written to an erudite, privileged population. I wish the letters would be more accessible and engaging for those of our communities who didnât grow up with books, or havenât read all the white male philosophers and authors Wolf has been raised to recognize as classics. But what I take from her letters is an impetus to make these letters accessible by talking about them with people I interact with. Wolf didnât mean for this book to be an end, but rather a careful and hopeful foundation for an informed beginning in our coming age of integrated technology. So, while this book grounded me and I felt like I had come home, like every beautiful book Iâve read, it has also inspired a wanderlust to travel with the content. I am off on my reading journeys, more aware of how my reading and absorption impact me, and of how the children around me will be impacted by our decisions.
Sincerely,
Sri Vidya
pursuing_metanoia's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
isaacneo's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
This isn't the best book I've ever read, but it may well be one of the most important.
Have you ever felt your reading stamina has declined? That you can't read a few pages without flipping to your social media. The digital revolution has rewired our brains to seek the dopamine rush of Instagram and Tiktok. Now imagine that, but with kids who have not yet learnt how to read slowly on books. Scary?
Reader, Come Home is by Dr. Maryanne Wolf, a neuroscientist who studies the development of the reading brain, constructing developmental models of the reading brain circuitry and the multiple component processes that are necessary for its acquisition.
She makes the case that a reading habit is "neither natural nor innate" - it has to be learnt and cultivated. Environmental factors determine how sophisticated our reading brain circuits are, and how we read. When we adopt the habit of 'deep reading', which is when we go beyond the act of just perceiving the words on a text and activate processes such as imagery, inference, analogical reasoning, empathy, and critical thinking. Wolf asks if the quality of our attention changes as we read on mediums which prioritize immediate task switching and continuous distractions, instead of deliberate focus.
Hence, children need to cultivate these deep reading skills by devoting equal time to reading books and texts as well as using digital devices. But more than that, it is only by delving into these stories with their full attention, that they can "experience the infinite possibilities within their own thoughts" and traverse worlds they never would have gone to.
Wolf's prose is rich and you can feel her love for her work through the chapters of the book, structured as letters to the reader. The earlier chapters are a bit dense with neuroscience, but power through them and you will be rewarded with a beautiful paean to the very act of reading, and why its important to preserve it. I'm sold!
drkottke's review against another edition
3.0
Much of this book is a wonderful presentation of research into the reading brain to the lay reader, picking up where the sublime Proust and the Squid left off to offer a research-informed rationale for Wolf's concerns about the effects of digital media on the cognitive affordances of deep reading. There are clear, full-throated arguments for the value of deep reading, for the development of a biliterate print/digital reading mind, for a lovely circus-based metaphor for understanding the reading mind, and for what is lost in the push for faster consumption of an increasing volume of texts. Maryanne Wolf has exactly the sort of smarty-pants writing style that I fancy in my own scholarly and professional writing; Dostoyevsky and Proust featured prominently in multiple research papers in grad school, which is why Wolf's writing appeals to me so much. YET ⌠3/4 of the way through the book, a certain debunked urban legend about prison beds and third grade reading scores rears its ugly head, and there's no citation. That's irresponsible, and unfortunately causes this otherwise enthusiastic reader to call into question other assertions that go without detailed citations. On that same page, the shibboleth about fourth grade being the hinge between "learning to read" and "reading to learn" also gets traction. No, good early literacy instruction with informational texts supports children learning through reading, and the increasing complexity of hybrid texts encountered in later content area instruction requires readers to continually learn how to read. Skip that chapter, and it's amazing.
theseasoul's review against another edition
3.5
|| 3.5 âď¸ ||
I hadnât really thought much before about the sheer amount of brain mechanisms that have to work together in order for us to read, comprehend, and apply what we are reading to reality. It blows me away how intricately God designed our brains. Now it makes more sense why reading is such a beneficial and constructive activityâI knew this, but not exactly why to this extentâand why itâs so important to preserve the act of reading in the following generations.
Many of the authorâs thoughts on the effects of technology in regards to reading comprehension, attention span, deep thinking, and so on werenât new to me. Iâve read several books on the subject, and felt that the information was more clear-cut in some of those.
But then again, maybe thatâs just me favouring books on this topic that are easier to digest precisely because I grew up with the digital reading brain that the author addresses. I certainly feel called outâI do know that I read for efficiency more than I probably should, and have the tendency to move onto the next thing so fast that I donât leave enough time for contemplation. Part of me is addicted to the fast reading pace and happy enough with the half-baked information I do retain, but another part of me always longs to slow down and leave more space to integrate new insights from what I am reading into my life.