Irena wrote:leosmith wrote:Not only is it not possible to determine these lower reading speeds are due to reduced brain plasticity, remember that brain plasticity is the same argument we are given as to why babies are so much better than adults at learning languages. But babies aren't nearly as good as adults at learning languages.
Babies cannot speak, but small children are unquestionably much better than adults at some aspects of language learning, such as developing a native-like accent. Children are also much better than adults at learning in an immersion setting. But yes, adults are better at learning from textbooks, provided they have access to those textbooks, plus a sufficient level of education to make effective use of them.leosmith wrote:Imo, sociocultural aspects are almost certainly the culprit behind the lower reading speeds.
Yeah, that's what people like to think. Trouble is, children who come from the same sort of sociocultural background do learn to read just fine, given a chance (i.e. decent textbooks and teachers). Adults - not so much.
Check out chapter 3 of this document:
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000368404
It's funny or depressing, depending on whether one needs to learn a new script or not. Here's a snippet:I experience this phenomenon every day. In 27 years of work at the World Bank, I learned about 10 languages for work in countries such as Cambodia, Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Arab world. Despite attaining a high level of oral proficiency in most languages, I read haltingly in all the scripts that I learned after the age of 18. World Bank missions to countries using these scripts usually lasted 1-3 weeks, but my speed quickly regressed after a trip. Under the best circumstances of practice and engagement I could read the Devanagari script in Hindi and Nepali at 60 words per minute around age 50. At age 67, after about 6 years of significant reading and advanced language self-study, I could only read Arabic at 30 words per minute and improved only marginally. This speed is around 10% of educated native-readers' speed.
Since 1992, I have interviewed and given informal reading tests to dozens of educated people who, as adults, learned Lao, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Amharic, Tibetan, Bengali, Japanese, Thai, Russian, Armenian, Farsi, Greek and other languages with scripts different from those studied as children (Abadzi, 1996). Of particular interest were advanced and fluent speakers who should easily understand written text. However, I never encountered anyone who had learned a script past age 19 and claimed completely effortless reading.
That was fascinating. It also really made me appreciate Korean. As new scripts go it’s one heck of a lot easier than the examples used in the text. Remind me never to learn Arabic or Hindi!