Ep237. ft. Laura Morales - The Reading Brain: Why Some Children Struggle and What Teachers Need to See (Part 1)

A child who struggles to read is not necessarily a child who cannot learn. Sometimes, the real problem is that we are looking at the struggle through the wrong lens. In Part 1 of this powerful conversation, psychologist, bilingual educator, and literacy specialist Laura Morales joins the Languages Pedagogy Podcast to unpack what actually happens inside the reading brain—and why understanding that process can completely change the way teachers respond to struggling learners. We explore the critical difference between speaking a language and being literate in it , why English and Spanish cannot simply be taught or assessed through direct translation, and how bilingual students can be misunderstood when educators lack knowledge of how their languages are structured. Laura also takes us inside the cognitive architecture of reading: phonological processing, decoding, semantics, attention, comprehension, automaticity, and higher-order thinking. The conversation becomes even more important when we examine dyslexia, ADHD, autism, neurodiversity, and reading difficulties . Instead of asking only, “Why can’t this child read?”, Laura challenges educators to ask a better question: Which par...