Eyes on Reading with Emily Hanford at Planet Word

Unlocking the secrets of language at Planet Word

Sold a Story host Emily Hanford is curating the Eyes on Reading speaker series at the museum of words and language in Washington, D.C.

Sold a Story fans,

I'm thrilled to share an exciting project with you. As the inaugural journalist-in-residence at Planet Word, a museum of language arts in Washington, D.C., I'm curating a new speaker series that promises to be fascinating and important.

Emily Hanford

Planet Word is a unique museum dedicated to the power and beauty of language. There's a 22-foot-tall talking word wall that tells the history of the English language and a whispering willow tree that murmurs in hundreds of languages as you pass beneath its branches. It's a cool place.

Our speaker series, called Eyes on Reading, brings together brilliant minds from across the globe, including:

Cognitive scientists unraveling the mysteries of how reading works in the brain
Policymakers reshaping how schools approach reading instruction
Educators doing the hard work of teaching every child to read

This is more than a series of talks — it's a journey into the heart of what makes us human: our ability to read, to understand, to communicate. Whether you're an educator, a parent, or simply curious about the power of language, these events offer insights that will change how you think about reading and learning.

Stay tuned for more updates, and I hope to see you at Planet Word soon!

These events are live and in-person at Planet Word, but don't worry if you can't make it — the videos will all be available here.

-Emily

MARK YOUR CALENDARS: SEPT. 18

What screens are doing to your brain with Maryanne Wolf

When was the last time you truly lost yourself in a book? I've got to admit that deep, sustained reading is harder for me than it used to be. The tug of the phone is real — but at least I remember what reading was like before the world was full of digital distractions. Younger generations never had that experience. Maryanne Wolf, author of Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, will explore how our increasingly screen-based lives are affecting our capacity for "deep" reading. She'll talk about how digital devices are affecting our perception of beauty and the development of empathy. And we'll discuss what this means for children and schools.

AVAILABLE NOW

APRIL 2024

The wonders of the reading brain with Stanislas Dehaene

In a laboratory outside Paris, the world's most powerful MRI machine has helped to reveal what happens inside our heads when we learn to read. Stanislas Dehaene's research has led to groundbreaking insights on how different parts of the brain collaborate during reading. His book, Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read, is a must for anyone interested in how we process language (I put it on the Sold a Story recommended reading list). In this talk, he showed us how learning to read changes our brains and discussed emerging research on dyslexia. One thing he said that surprised me — and got an audible response from the audience — is that when someone reads braille, they still activate the brain's "visual word form" area. It's really captivating stuff that challenges long-held beliefs about how people learn to read. And it's relevant for educators. Dehaene told us about how his work is reshaping reading instruction in French schools right now.