Teaching the Brain to Read: Strategies for Improving Fluency, Vocabulary and Comprehension

By: Judy Willis

Narrated by: Rosemary Benson

Reading comes easily to some students, but many struggle with some part of this complex process that requires many areas of the brain to operate together through an intricate network of neurons.

As a classroom teacher who has also worked as a neurologist, Judy Willis offers a unique perspective on how to help students not only learn the mechanics of reading and comprehension, but also develop a love of reading. She shows the importance of establishing a nonthreatening environment and provides teaching strategies that truly engage students and help them

• Build phonemic awareness;
• Manipulate patterns to improve reading skills;
• Improve reading fluency;
• Combat the stress and anxiety that can inhibit reading fluency; and
• Increase vocabulary;
• Overcome reading difficulties that can interfere with comprehension.

By enriching your understanding of how the brain processes language, emotion, and other stimuli, this book will change the way you understand and teach reading skills - and help all your students become successful readers.

The book is published by ASCD.

©2008 Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) (P)2012 Redwood Audiobooks

Not so reader friendly

The book is very technical. She illustrates a lengthy knowledge of reading practices and solutions but it's overshadowed by her medical explanations of how the mind works. This is good information but not precisely what the reader is seeking to obtain. The "steps" will need to distilled from the vast amount of data supplied. Which is unfortunate if the person that purchased the book was looking for steps to correct his or her comprehension.

Academic at best

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

If the first 5 chapters would have provided any useful information in terms of applicability as either parent or teacher, I would have provided a higher rating. Much ado about brain scans and what not.

Would you ever listen to anything by Judy Willis again?

No.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Rosemary Benson?

Never.