Whats the most effective way to help people learn new words? Sound them out, The Seattle Times reported.
Researchers found sounding out new words slowly helps people memorize new words easier, The Seattle Times reported. Researchers who measured brain activity among 16 literate adults found the left hemisphere of the brain commonly used by skilled readers to identify words in a fraction of a second lit up after the adults learned words from instructors who sounded out the words slowly, according to The Seattle Times.
That reaction didnt happen when the adults were told to just simply memorize the word, The Seattle Times reported, which indicates that slowly sounding out a word may be the best method.
Researchers told The Seattle Times that this is one of the first experiments to show what happens when a specific teaching technique is used to instruct people on new vocabulary.
Were looking at how attention during learning changes the outcome of learning what brain circuits are reacting when you see this stimulus in the future, said Bruce McCandliss of Stanford University and one of the studys authors.
Though this study says sounding out new words helps people learn, other research has found people memorize new vocabulary by seeing an image of the entire word in their brain rather than by sound. The Georgetown University Medical Center found the brain sees new words as one entire image rather than a group of letters. So, for example, the brain would recognize the word EXAMPLE as one image rather than by each letter.
The research concluded the brain tunes its neurons to understand an entire word, rather than just parts of the word.
We are not recognizing words by quickly spelling them out or identifying parts of words, as some researchers have suggested. Instead, neurons in a small brain area remember how the whole word looks using what could be called a visual dictionary, the researchers lead author Maximilian Riesenhuber said in a press release.
There are some benefits to learning new words, too. For example, a 2014 study published in Current Biology found learning new words triggers the same reward system in the brain that goes off during drug use or while having sex.
The study said learning new words stimulates the ventral striatum, or the rewards center of the brain.
But this study has a more important finding: People constantly get interested in learning new words because of the feelings of rewards they feel, which shows were always able to learn new words from childhood to adulthood, according to Science Daily.
Results confirm that the motivation to learn is preserved throughout the lifespan, helping adults to acquire a second language, Science Daily reported.
Learning new words especially for a foreign language helps you better adapt to culture, according to The Atlantics Cody C. Delistraty. It also helps you improve your memory, become more perceptive of your surroundings and increase your focus. Learning a new language has also been known to delay dementia and help with other mental health issues, Delistraty reported.
Researchers found sounding out new words slowly helps people memorize new words easier, The Seattle Times reported. Researchers who measured brain activity among 16 literate adults found the left hemisphere of the brain commonly used by skilled readers to identify words in a fraction of a second lit up after the adults learned words from instructors who sounded out the words slowly, according to The Seattle Times.
That reaction didnt happen when the adults were told to just simply memorize the word, The Seattle Times reported, which indicates that slowly sounding out a word may be the best method.
Researchers told The Seattle Times that this is one of the first experiments to show what happens when a specific teaching technique is used to instruct people on new vocabulary.
Were looking at how attention during learning changes the outcome of learning what brain circuits are reacting when you see this stimulus in the future, said Bruce McCandliss of Stanford University and one of the studys authors.
Though this study says sounding out new words helps people learn, other research has found people memorize new vocabulary by seeing an image of the entire word in their brain rather than by sound. The Georgetown University Medical Center found the brain sees new words as one entire image rather than a group of letters. So, for example, the brain would recognize the word EXAMPLE as one image rather than by each letter.
The research concluded the brain tunes its neurons to understand an entire word, rather than just parts of the word.
We are not recognizing words by quickly spelling them out or identifying parts of words, as some researchers have suggested. Instead, neurons in a small brain area remember how the whole word looks using what could be called a visual dictionary, the researchers lead author Maximilian Riesenhuber said in a press release.
There are some benefits to learning new words, too. For example, a 2014 study published in Current Biology found learning new words triggers the same reward system in the brain that goes off during drug use or while having sex.
The study said learning new words stimulates the ventral striatum, or the rewards center of the brain.
But this study has a more important finding: People constantly get interested in learning new words because of the feelings of rewards they feel, which shows were always able to learn new words from childhood to adulthood, according to Science Daily.
Results confirm that the motivation to learn is preserved throughout the lifespan, helping adults to acquire a second language, Science Daily reported.
Learning new words especially for a foreign language helps you better adapt to culture, according to The Atlantics Cody C. Delistraty. It also helps you improve your memory, become more perceptive of your surroundings and increase your focus. Learning a new language has also been known to delay dementia and help with other mental health issues, Delistraty reported.
