This blog is based on a presentation that my mentor (Dr. Oren Boxer) and I gave jointly at the 2018 International Dyslexia Association- Los Angeles (IDA-LA) conference titled "Reading Without Pictures: How Visual Spatial Deficits Change The Narrative." I wanted to take a moment to credit Dr. Boxer's contributions. While our busy schedules don't allow for much time to collaborate on presentations these days, I highly recommend visiting Dr. Boxer's website and signing up to receive notifications about his future presentations. Dr. Boxer is one of the most talented and interesting speakers I've come across in my career, delivering complex information through digestible language, and I continue to learn from him after over 10 years of working together.
Hot Tip: Not into wordy blogs? Skip to the end to find (bullet-pointed) ways you can support your child's reading comprehension skills, at any age!

Welcome to the fascinating world of reading comprehension, a cognitive journey that begins in the earliest stages of our lives and evolves into a complex dance between language and the brain. As parents, you've witnessed the magical moment when a child first recognizes words on a page, but have you ever wondered what happens inside their growing minds as they begin to understand and immerse themselves in the stories they read? In this blog post, we'll explore the intricate neurological processes that enable us to transform simple characters on a page into rich, vivid worlds, and how this ability develops from infancy through adolescence. Join us as we delve into the neural symphony that orchestrates our reading experiences and how it matures over time.
At its core, reading comprehension is the ability to extract and construct meaning from written text. Higher-level reading comprehension is an immersive experience. When we read narratives, we often comprehend the events of the story by taking the perspective of the main character, experiencing the sights, sounds, and emotions of their journey. How does our brain turn pages of made-up symbols into this enveloping world that we experience and understand?
The Development of Reading Comprehension Over the Years
The road to reading comprehension is long. It starts in the womb, where we first hear and process the phonological segments of language spoken by our mother and those around her. Then, as toddlers, we are taught to pair objects (ball) and emotions (sad) with words, which we later use as a framework for simulation. In early childhood, we learn to take the perspective of others (theory of mind), and we start to track the experiences of the characters in the books read to us by our parents.
By kindergarten, we begin learning orthographic skills - pairing letters with sounds and eventually blending phonemes to decode whole words. At this point, we have the most basic form of reading (text) comprehension (known as "surface form"). Eventually, children develop the ability to interpret the semantic structures of sentences, leading to text-based comprehension. Through the next years, their decoding becomes more fluent, their vocabulary expands, and they have more world experiences, all of which supports their interpretation of text.
The 4th grade brings the well-known shift from "learning to read" to "reading to learn." The timing of this shift is no accident. In the 4th grade, the 9-year-old brain is developing new abilities as the frontal lobes (a key brain area in mental simulation) light up and come on-line. This is the beginning of situation-level comprehension, where basic understanding is linked with memories and knowledge base to form a mental simulation of the text that incorporated the who, what, when, where and why of the story simultaneously.
But don't expect your advanced-reading bright 9 year old to achieve the same immersive experience as you do when reading a Tolkien novel together. In fact, even at 12-years old, most students still struggle to update mental simulations of text...particularly when events occur out of order (avoid the books that skip from present to past and back again, for now). It is not until late childhood, or even early adolescence, that a child has sufficient frontal-lobe power (read: working memory) to construct fully immersive visual simulations of text, as these skills continue to develop alongside our growing frontal lobe, through our teenage years and into adulthood.
The Simulating Brain
When talking about the role of the brain in reading, many of us are familiar with this image from Sally Shaywitz's work:
It is a great, simplified image - one that I often use when explaining the neural systems of reading to parents and teachers. Yet, it doesn't truly capture the mental gymnastics involved in the complex process of high-level reading comprehension. Several studies have looked at the activation patterns in the brain when it is engaged in reading a narrative, and the results indicate that multiple brain areas, including those in the right hemisphere, are recruited when reading to create an immersive simulation of a narrative, tracking the characters and their motivation, creating visual imagery, and simulating sensory experiences.
Read the above passage. Done? Great! From this short passage, you probably inferred that the boy:
had a fight,
fared pretty well, comparatively,
and is proud of it.
None of these points are explicitly mentioned in the text, but you likely used mental simulation to determine what could have led the boy to look the way he does, and say what he did. How did your brain do this?!
The frontal lobe, with its executive functions, is the maestro of our cognitive abilities, playing a pivotal role in planning, decision-making, and moderating social behavior. In the context of reading, it helps children not only to construct and maintain a coherent narrative in their minds but also to manage the multiple cognitive tasks involved in understanding a text, including mental simulation. These tasks include integrating new information with existing knowledge, making predictions, inferring characters' intentions, and grasping the nuances of the plot.
Moreover, the frontal lobe works in tandem with the parietal lobes, which are key players in processing language and spatial orientation. This partnership forms what is known as the frontal-parietal working memory loop, a dynamic neural circuit that enables children to visualize the setting of a story and track the movements and emotional states of characters as if they were watching a scene unfold before their eyes.
As children's brains mature, the connections within this loop become stronger and more efficient, enhancing their ability to juggle various elements of a story. This development is crucial for higher-level comprehension, allowing them to not only follow but also to analyze and critically engage with complex narratives. Understanding this process can empower parents to support their children's reading development through targeted activities that stimulate these cognitive functions, such as discussing the motivations of story characters, summarizing plot points, and predicting future events in the narrative (see below for more strategies!).
As we've journeyed through the developmental stages of reading comprehension, it's clear that this skill is far more than just recognizing words and sentences—it's an intricate cognitive feat that involves multiple regions of the brain working in concert. The frontal lobe, often likened to a skilled director, orchestrates these neural activities, allowing us to create and maintain dynamic mental simulations from the text. For our children, the path to mastering this immersive experience is a gradual one, marked by significant milestones and the continuous growth of their cognitive abilities. By understanding the neuropsychology behind reading, we can better appreciate the complexities of this process and support our young readers as they progress from decoding symbols to experiencing the full richness of literature. Let's continue to nurture their love for reading, knowing that with each page turned, their brains are developing in extraordinary ways!
Do you have a struggling reader?
Reading is not a natural skill that our brain simply develops, like language. If your child is struggling to read, you should speak with their teacher and seek support from a reading professional trained in evidence-based reading instruction. In some cases, an assessment is warranted to determine whether your child's brain processes reading tasks differently, like those with Dyslexia. Contact our office for more information about local reading supports or to schedule an assessment:
Website: www.DrGreenfield.com
Email: info@drgreenfield.com
Strategies to Foster Your Child's Reading Comprehension
Toddlers (Ages 1-3):
Picture Book Interaction: Use picture books to ask your toddler to guess what a character might be feeling or doing, even if it's not explicitly stated in the text. For example, point to a character's facial expression and ask, "How do you think the bunny feels?" This encourages early theory of mind development.
Simple Role-Playing: Engage in role-playing games where you and your toddler take turns pretending to be different characters from a story, expressing their emotions and actions.
Preschoolers (Ages 3-5):
Story Predictions: Before turning the page, ask your child what they think will happen next in the story. This encourages them to use clues from the text and pictures to understand characters' thoughts and motives.
Emotion Matching: Have your child match emotion words or faces with story events, fostering an understanding of how characters might react to different situations.
Early Elementary (Ages 5-7):
Character Diaries: After reading a story, help your child write a diary entry from the perspective of one of the characters, which can help them explore and understand different viewpoints within the narrative.
Question Prompts: Use "why" and "how" questions to prompt deeper thinking about the story. For example, "Why do you think the character chose to do that?" encourages children to consider motives and consequences.
Middle Elementary (Ages 8-10):
Story Mapping: Create a visual map of the story with your child, including key events, character relationships, and settings. This helps them keep track of complex narratives and understand how different elements interact.
Role-Playing Scenarios: Act out scenes from a book, focusing on expressing characters' thoughts and feelings. This helps children practice perspective-taking and empathy.
Preteens (Ages 11-13):
Debate Characters' Decisions: Engage in discussions about characters' decisions and their implications, encouraging your child to consider different perspectives and moral dilemmas.
Connecting to Personal Experiences: Encourage your child to relate events or characters in the story to their own life, which can help them understand and internalize the narrative more deeply.
Teens (Ages 14+):
Literary Analysis: Discuss themes, symbols, and motifs in more sophisticated texts. Encourage teens to analyze how these elements contribute to the overall meaning of the story.
Book Club Discussions: Start a family book club where each member reads the same book and discusses it, focusing on character motivations, plot developments, and personal interpretations.
By tailoring activities to the appropriate developmental stage, parents can effectively foster reading comprehension and theory of mind in their children, setting the foundation for lifelong reading and learning skills.
Kommentare