What We Know About Reading

"So we have learned two important things just now about reading:

1. Since language originates in sound, every written story has a voice we can hear as we read, and join with if we like the sound of it. If you read any story aloud and listen carefully, you will hear below your voice the voice of the writer coming through, borrowing your sound equipment.

2. Writing enlists the full physiological model of the reader, who is able to see, hear, taste, smell, and touch, as well as move, while reading at rest. This is achieved because all these powers originate in the brain and reading language gives access to them directly as mental representation."

- Joseph Gold.  Read For Your Life: Literature as a Life Support System. Fitzhenry and Whiteside: Markham, 1990. pg 259