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‘Elbow Room’: How the Reading Brain Informs the Teaching of Reading

October 20th, 2025

 

Elbow Room is an invitation to move beyond false binaries in literacy debates and to see reading development as dynamic, requiring multiple emphases and areas of expertise in our teachers. The key for educators is knowing what to prioritize — when, and for how long — based on each learner’s strengths and needs.

Grounded in research on the reading brain, the paper highlights two inseparable emphases: expanded foundational skills and deep reading comprehension. At different points in development, one emphasis may carry the melody while the other plays harmony, yet neither is ever absent from instruction.

Wolf honors what educators already know, while inviting them to keep expanding that knowledge — so they can attune instruction with increasing precision, knowing when, and for how long, to shift emphasis for each learner, and doing so in a systematic, explicit way that helps all children grow into fluent, deep readers.

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Authors

Maryanne Wolf Director, Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice, UCLA Graduate School of Education

Dyslexia Modules

Free modules on Dyslexia and Literacy, developed by the Literacy and Dyslexia Task Force of the UC/CSU Collaborative for Neuroscience, Diversity, and Learning. 

Created by Dr. Sue Sears, Professor in the Michael D. Eisner College of Education at California, and Dr. Maryanne Wolf, Director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice, Professor-in-Residence at the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies.

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