Studying Hyperlexia May Unlock How Brains Read (washingtonpost.com)
Fascinating article on hyperlexia, a disorder where children begin reading spontaneously at a very young age. This is different from being a gifted or early reader, since other delays are associated with hyperlexia.
“Understanding hyperlexia may also help explain how normal brains accomplish the feat of reading. Unlike seeing and hearing, skills acquired through evolution, reading is usually not acquired naturally. Humans have been reading for only a few thousand years, and the pressure for everyone to become good readers has become intense in only the past couple of centuries.
Reading involves a complex series of brain activities: Visual centers must first perceive variable, tiny features of printed symbols on a page, then those changes must be mentally converted into strings of sound, and finally the patterns of sound must be interpreted by language centers in the brain to register their meaning.”

Sun-Sentinel: Palm Beach County news
“Will Heckman, the school’s media specialist, thinks the school’s growing graphic novel collection is keeping kids out of trouble and hooking them on reading, albeit in a nontraditional format. In its first year, almost half the 600-book collection is usually checked out of the library. Acquired with about $5,000 from the Palm Beach County School District, the books account for 1 percent of the library’s collection but 50 percent of the books students check out.”
Via LISNews.

The Miami Herald — FCAT scores up at schools with good libraries, study shows
“In her Making the Grade report, Education Professor Donna Baumbach found FCAT scores were 20 percent higher in 2000-01 at high schools with at least one full-time professional librarian and one full-time assistant. Among elementary schools, the same level of staffing meant a 9 percent improvement.
And yet, the amount of state money provided to libraries is ”pitiful,” Baumbach said. Since 2000, the state account earmarked for library materials has remained at $15 million, despite an overall growth in student population. This year, Gov. Jeb Bush’s proposed budget would keep it at $15 million, while the state Department of Education is asking for $18 million.”
Via LISNews.