A recent LinkedIn exchange revealed a troubling mindset in education debates. When I shared that teaching letter names helps children decode irregular words like ceiling, giraffe, or bee, a commentator dismissed me with sarcasm: “Don’t look at science. Make stuff up instead.”
New research proves what many educators deny: the brain is prewired to read. It’s time to rethink everything.
Sections:
Ohio State study shows newborns have a brain region ready to process words.
VWFA is connected to language networks — even before exposure.
Pamela Snow and others claim reading is a recent invention, so it can’t be innate.
This ignores both science and lived experience.
We’re not building literacy from scratch — we’re protecting what’s already there.
Mislabeling kids and rigid instruction are the real threats.
OSU is scanning 3–4 year olds to track VWFA development.
This could reshape how we understand reading disorders.
Call to Action: Reading is not a contrivance. It’s a capacity.
Read the full post below.
For years, I’ve been told that reading is not a natural process — that it’s a human invention too recent to be innate. Educators like Pamela Snow parrot this claim, citing the 6,000-year history of written language as proof. But new research from Ohio State University finally confirms what I’ve observed for decades: the human brain is biologically predisposed to learn to read.
