The ability to read has important economic and social consequences. Adults that cannot read face disadvantages in the work force and as a result sometimes suffer from mental health problems like depression. Children that have difficulty learning to read, in addition to being at risk for depression, also suffer from increased rates of bullying and can experience poorer relationships with their parents and teachers, when compared with children that learn to read normally. A crucial task for the psychological and educational sciences is to ensure that the best possible tools are available for making sure that every elementary school student has the maximum possible chance for reading success. This project will contribute to that goal by characterizing the brain states of children learning how to read in a more in-depth manner than has ever been done before. The team will create a new, detailed picture of the different strategies individuals use to become successful readers, and what goes wrong in those strategies in individuals that struggle with reading. This picture will be based on a combination of measures ranging from report card scores to the signature activity that occurs in the brain when a word is successfully identified.
The principle investigator has pledged to work closely with doctors at her area's leading center for developmental science (the Binghamton University Institute for Child Development) to make sure that the results of the tudy are immediately put in to practice in a responsible manner, so that children in the community can start enjoying the benefits of the work as soon as possible. The research team further pledges to make the (anonymous) results of the study available publicly, on the internet, so that educators and researchers everywhere can use the new information collected through this project to aid students in their own communities. Because the results will be available so widely, many more research groups will be able to interpret and extend what is found than would be the case if the results were not so extensively shared. This means that the work started here has the potential to ignite a new era of investigation, nation and world-wide, that seeks to use the human brain to inform literacy education as it never has before.
