How reading shapes your brain
6 Minute English
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2026
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Do you remember what it was like before you learnt to read? It's hard to think back that far! Scientific research has shown that learning to read changes the way our brains work. Not only that, but depending on the language you are reading, your brain changes in different ways. Becca and Georgie discuss this and teach you some new vocabulary.
Find a transcript and worksheet at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/6-minute-english_2026/ep-260514
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.5 | Got another six minutes? We have lots more to help you with your English. Try real easy English |
| 0:12.0 | to learn from natural English conversations or learn some English from the biggest new stories from around the world. |
| 0:19.6 | Search BBC Learning English in your podcast app to |
| 0:22.4 | find our other programs or find much more at BBC LearningEnglish.com. |
| 0:28.9 | Six Minute English from BBC LearningEnglish.com. |
| 0:36.4 | Hello, welcome to Six Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Becca and I'm Georgie. Remember, |
| 0:43.7 | you can find all this episode's vocabulary along with a transcript and worksheet on our website, |
| 0:49.2 | BBClearningEnglish.com. Now, Becca, do you read a lot? Hmm, I don't read often. I just feel like I don't have the time, |
| 0:57.4 | Georgie. How about yourself? I would love to read more, but I don't read very much at the moment. |
| 1:03.4 | I read mostly before bed because I feel like it helps me relax and go to sleep. And today we're |
| 1:09.9 | talking all about reading. We'll be hearing from some |
| 1:12.4 | experts about how reading can change our brains. And as usual, we'll be learning some useful |
| 1:17.4 | new words and phrases. Let's start with a quiz question. The longest novel in the world is |
| 1:23.5 | widely thought to be by French author Marcel Proust, a book which, when translated into English, means remembrance of things past. |
| 1:33.1 | But how many words does the book contain? Is it A, 130,000, B, 1.3 million or C, 13 million? |
| 1:43.0 | Okay, the longest novel in the world. I still think 13 million words |
| 1:47.6 | sounds too many. So I'm going to go with B, 1.3 million. All right, we'll find out at the end of the |
| 1:54.4 | program. Now, we might think of reading as like speaking. We're born with the potential to do it, |
| 2:02.6 | and then we learn. It's natural. If something is natural, it's something you were born with or that comes from nature. |
| 2:07.6 | But Marianne Wolf, author of the book Reader Come Home, says that this isn't true. |
| 2:13.6 | We think of language is natural and reading is written language, so it must be natural. |
... |
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