Known for passionate and enthusiastic lectures in her child development classes, Dr. Maryanne Wolf appeared on PBS last Tuesday to share her expertise with a wider audience. In addition to teaching classes, Wolf is the director of Tufts' Center for Reading and Language Research.
Aired on Jan. 22, The Child's Brain: Syllable from Sound, was the second episode of the PBS series The Secret Life of the Brain. The five-part series, slated to air over a three-week period, deals with "all aspects of the brain," according to Wolf.
The show explores the complicated processes of brain development over a person's lifetime. The show, according to PBS, addresses the topic through "dynamic visual imagery and compelling human stories to help a general audience understand otherwise difficult scientific concepts."
PBS approached Wolf about the special, which was originally filmed last year, to seek her expertise in the field of literacy development. The goal of this "cinematic endeavor," as Wolf puts it, is two fold: first "to understand what areas of the brain were being used in reading," and second, "what people at Tufts are doing to translate the knowledge of the reading brain into a better way to teach children."
"[The episode] takes you through the developing fetus, all the way through to my segment, reading," Wolf said.
The film is significant for the University, as it spotlights the Tufts Center for Reading and Language Research.
"[This is] the first time we've had two PBS films of the Center's work and an emphasis on translating cognitive science to teaching," Wolf said.
Located in the basement of Miller Hall, the Center is part of a three-city program with Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children and Georgia State University in Atlanta. It concentrates on learning more about how the brain functions in order to help children with severe reading disabilities.
"The center not only conducts cutting-edge research, but its various offshoots offer programs in community service to nearby schools," Marjorie Howard wrote in the Tufts Journal, published on Sept. 20, 2001. The center focuses on other research besides helping children with reading disabilities and setbacks, according to Howard.
"[The Center] has something to offer every level of the University. Undergraduates and graduate students receive training; doctoral students and faculty have access to ever-increasing databases; and the University is contributing to its neighboring communities," Howard wrote. The center is also reaching out to the community.
"The center has entered into a collaboration with the mayor of Malden to work with teachers and children in that city," Howard wrote.
This collaboration, know as the Tufts Malden Project implements new instructional methods, developed based on cognitive science, of teaching students with severe reading disorders.
Howard credits Wolf's knowledge and studies, to contributing to the child development field.
"Maryanne Wolf has spent years understanding how we learn to read and what happens when that process breaks down. Her scholarship has resulted in new developments in treating dyslexia and has added to the body of knowledge in the neurosciences," Howard wrote.
Wolf's academic endeavors led her to the writing of a book on the subject, Plato's Rebellion: The Story and Science of Reading and Its Disorders. The preface of the upcoming book states: "Written language represents one of the most extraordinarily complex and least understood acts the species has ever been called upon to learn." It is this complex act that Wolf tackles and attempts to explain in layman's terms in her new book, expected to be published by the end 2002.
Wolf's experiences with and research leading up to the making of the PBS special and the writing of her book will most likely find their way into the classroom, either through discussion in CD-1 or CD-243, class which Wolf teaches in spring and fall respectively. In addition to possibly becoming a part of her curriculum, Wolf wishes to show the films at the Center's open house, scheduled for later on in the semester.
