MRI Demonstrates That Different Part of the Brain Can be Activated Between Students Who are Good Spellers and Those Who Struggle

"Working memory is best described as a distributed architecture rather than a single mechanism; and good and poor spellers engage working memory architecture differently.

We propose that spelling is an executive function for translating cognition into language (sounds and morphemes) and then into visual symbols rather than a mere transcription skill for translating words in memory into written symbols in external memory."

Basically, the memory a learner uses to complete everyday tasks in a school setting uses multiple areas of the brain to pull information. So the memory that is used to complete a task such as spelling is not a simple recall but has multiple steps involving more than one part of the brain. Students who struggled with reading, spelling, and writing are most likely struggling with much more than one simple issue.

To read the entire abstract go to: http://jowr.org/articles/vol1_2/JoWR_2009_vol1_nr2_Richards_Berninger_et_al.pdf