Our team is very happy about our new Frontiers for Young Minds (FYM) article that talks about how we use neuroimaging techniques to study the magical world of reading. FYM is a journal edited by kids and for kids. It aims to provide scientific information in a way that is understandable to children and, in this case, their teachers. Our article “The magical art of legilimency (or neuroimaging) to study the reading brain” appeared in a special edition entitled “Everything you and your teachers need to know about the learning brain” and will be translated into different languages. In this article, we discuss how the brain learns to read, and how this process comes easier to some children than others. We also mentioned that reading problems are often undiagnosed until the 2nd and 3rd grade, although the best and most effective window for support is much earlier (dyslexia paradox).
I had such a great time writing this article and making the illustrations to go along with it. Ultimately, it allowed us to describe the reading brain while talking about Harry Potter and magic! And summing up the motivation for our work as described at the end of the article:
“…Unlike the wizards in Harry Potter, scientists cannot read people’s minds or use any other forms of magic. But we have come up with various methods and technologies to study the learning brain, one of which is MRI. With each study, we learn a bit more and eventually, this information may help us to support each child to reach his or her goals. And being able to do so is true magic.”
We are all born scientists 
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