A review by isaacneo
Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World by Maryanne Wolf

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!