Cultural unity and diversity of learning to read: A comparative cognitive neuroscience approach

• Applicant: Dr. Michael Skeide
• Subject Area: Developmental and Educational Psychology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 499339749

Established theories of learning to read are centered on cultures that use Latin scripts. To which extent these theories generalize to the several hundred other scripts existing worldwide remains to be explored. The present proposal tackles this issue from a cognitive neuroscience perspective.The overarching objective is to identify commonalities and differences with respect to functional brain reorganization processes of children learning to read either Hebrew or German. Specifically, our project is centered on the emerging neural encoding of the different reading directions (1) and the different letter concatenation principles (2) and on the neurodevelopmental implementation of the ability to link letter strings to meaning (3). To address these research questions, we will longitudinally follow 6-year-old children in Israel and Germany while they learn how to read in school. These children will take part in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments on visual word recognition and undergo continuous behavioral assessment of reading and general cognitive skills. The work proposed here will provide fundamental cross-cultural insights into how learning to read modulates visual and language-related brain functions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Israel
• International Co-Applicant: Professorin Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus, Ph.D.