Wolf, Maryanne 1947–

PERSONAL:

Born October 25, 1947, in South Bend, IN; daughter of Frank Joseph and Mary Elizabeth Wolf; married Gil Noam, July 26, 1985; children: Benjamin, David. Education: Saint Mary's College (Notre Dame, IN), B.A., 1969; Northwestern University, M.A., 1970; Harvard University, Ed.D., 1979. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Roman Catholic. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, music, poetry, snorkeling.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Tufts University Center for Reading and Language Research, Tufts University, Miller Hall N Wing, Medford, MA 02155. Agent—Anne Edelstein Literary Agency, 20 W. 22nd St., Ste. 1603, New York, NY 10010. E-mail—maryanne.wolf@tufts.edu.

CAREER:

Reading and language arts teacher in Waialua, HI, and South Bend, IN, 1970-73; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, instructor, 1978-79; Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, assistant professor of psychology, 1979-80; Tufts University, Medford, MA, assistant professor of child study, 1980-86, associate professor, 1987-98, professor of child development, 1999—, John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service, 2006—, director of Center for Reading and Language Research, 1996—. Veteran's Administration Hospital Aphasia Research Center, naming group research associate, 1978-84; Harvard University, director of Harvard Institute of Reading, Language, and Learning Disorders, summers, 1980-81, research scientist at Harvard Medical School, 1992—. Member of advisory boards of organizations, including American Educational Therapists, Boston Higher Education Partnership, Haan Foundation for Children, Hanson Initiative for Language and Literacy, Institute for Learning and Development, Intergenerational Literacy Program, Learning Disabilities Network, National Dyslexia Research Foundation (became Dyslexia Foundation), Read Boston, and Scholastic Advisory Board. Guest on PBS series Secrets of the Brain, 2002, and Reading Rockets, 2003.

MEMBER:

International Dyslexia Association, International Mind, Brain, and Education Society (member of editorial board and charter member, 2004—), International Neuropsychological Society, International Society for Study of Behavioral Development, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological Association, Cognitive Neurosciences Society, Society for Research in Child Development, Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (charter member).

AWARDS, HONORS:

National Teaching Excellence Award in Psychology, American Psychological Association, 1991; Massachusetts Distinguished Teacher of the Year award, Massachusetts Psychological Association, 1991; Professional Achievement Award for Alumna, St. Mary's College, Notre Dame, 1994; American Psychological Association Award, 1995; Shannon Award for Innovative Research (with Maureen Lovett and Robin Morris), National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, 1995; Golden Key International Honour Society Award, 1997; Norman Geschwind Memorial Lecture Award, International Dyslexia Association, 1998; Distinguished Scholar Award, Tufts University, 2003; program award, Institute for Education Science, 2003-05; Proust and the Squid was named a best nonfiction book of the year by Publishers Weekly and a best science book of the year by Library Journal and received the Margo Marek Award, New York Branch of the International Dyslexia Association, 2008; numerous fellowships, including Radcliffe, 1978, Fulbright, 1993, Tufts University, 1999, and Tisch College, 2006-08; numerous grants.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Mark K. McQuillan and Eugene Radwin) Thought and Language/Language and Reading, preface by Jeanne S. Chall, Harvard Educational Review (Cambridge, MA), 1980, 2nd edition, 1983.

(With G. Goodman) Speed Wizards: Computerized Games for the Teaching of Reading Fluency (computer software), Tufts University/Rochester Institute of Technology (Boston, MA, and Rochester, NY), 1996.

(Editor and contributor) Dyslexia, Fluency, and the Brain, York Press (Timonium, MD), 2001.

Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, illustrations by Catherine Stoodley, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to books, including Children's Language, Volume III, edited by K. Nelson, 1982; Oxford International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, 1991; Foundations of Reading Acquisition and Dyslexia, edited by B. Blachman, 1997; Identification of Learning Disabilities: Research to Practice, edited by R. Bradley, L. Danielson, and D.P. Hallahan, 2002; (with B. O'Brien) The Dyslexic Brain, edited by G. Rosen, 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Annals of Dyslexia, Aphasiology, Applied Psycholinguistics, Assessment, Brain and Language, Contemporary Psychology, Developmental Neuropsychology, Dyslexia, Dyslexia Contact, Educational Researcher, First Language, Indiana Reading Quarterly, Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of Genetic Psychology, Journal of Learning Disabilities, Journal of Reading and Writing, Journal of Special Education, Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, Language Development, Learning and Individual Differences, McLean Hospital Journal, New Ideas in Psychology, Perspectives, Perspektiva, Psycholinguistics, Reading and Writing, Reading Research Quarterly, Scientific Studies of Reading, and Topics in Language Disorders. Harvard Educational Review, member of editorial board, 1975-77, book review editor, 1976-77, special issue editor, 1976-77 and 1980; Applied Psycholinguistics, member of editorial board, 1983—; Dyslexia, executive editor for United States, 2003—.

SIDELIGHTS:

A groundbreaking researcher in the field of reading and language, Maryanne Wolf has helped develop state-of-the-art methods to help children overcome dyslexia and other reading disabilities. Working as director of the Tufts University Center for Reading and Language Research, she has studied the intricacies of how human brains successfully process text as well as what goes wrong in brains that do not. She has produced several scholarly works in her field, and in 2007 she published her findings in a book intended for general audiences, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain.

Proust and the Squid is "brilliant and eye-opening," wrote Carlin Romano in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Romano highlighted Wolf's thorough knowledge of reading and her discussion of dyslexia, a subject in which she maintains both a professional and a personal interest as the mother of a dyslexic son. The critic expressed some exasperation, however, with Wolf's extensive use of technical terms for brain physiology and function and what he termed "merely serviceable rather than spiffy sentences." A Kirkus Reviews writer similarly perceived "a sticky swamp of jargon" in the work but acknowledged that Wolf "does a creditable job of explaining reading's complexities" and "effectively summarizes the most relevant brain research." Some writers had no difficulty with the text: Candice Kail in Library Journal stated that "Wolf's intriguing combination of linguistic history, sociology, psychology, and neuroscience is engaging and clear," and a Publishers Weekly reviewer called Proust and the Squid "one of those rare books that synthesizes cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research with the inviting tone of a curious, erudite friend." Admitting that "there's a lot of difficult material in here," Telegraph Online reviewer William Leith maintained that "it's worth the effort." He described parts of the book as "blindingly fascinating" and considered it "a must" for anyone interested in language. Proust and the Squid was recognized by both Library Journal and Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of the year and won the Margo Marek Award of the New York Branch of the International Dyslexia Association.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Discover, September, 2007, Ruth Borgman, "Why the Brain Learned to Read," p. 70.

Financial Times, April 5, 2008, Stephen Cave, review of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, p. 35.

Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, November, 2001, review of Dyslexia, Fluency, and the Brain, p. 255.

Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2007, review of Proust and the Squid.

Library Journal, August 1, 2007, Candice Kail, review of Proust and the Squid, p. 115.

New England Journal of Medicine, January 31, 2008, Bradley L. Schlaggar, review of Proust and the Squid, p. 538.

New Scientist, September 29, 2007, Kate Douglas, "The Literate Brain," p. 52.

New Yorker, December 24, 2007, Caleb Crain, "Twilight of the Books," p. 134.

Philadelphia Inquirer, September 12, 2007, Carlin Romano, review of Proust and the Squid.

Publishers Weekly, December 31, 2007, review of Proust and the Squid, p. 46.

Science News, October 13, 2007, review of Proust and the Squid, p. 239.

SciTech Book News, June, 2002, review of Dyslexia, Fluency, and the Brain, p. 121.

Washington Post Book World, September 2, 2007, Michael Dirda, "Reading Is Hard Work for the Brain, As This Book Proves," p. 10.

ONLINE

On Point,http://www.onpointradio.org/ (April 11, 2008), Tom Ashbrook, "The Reading Mind," interview with Maryanne Wolf.

Tech Nation,http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/ (October 24, 2007), Moira Gunn, "Maryanne Wolf," interview with Maryanne Wolf.

Telegraph Online,http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ (March 28, 2008), William Leith, "We Were Never Meant to Read."

Tufts University Department of Arts, Sciences, & Engineering Web site,http://ase.tufts.edu/ (September 22, 2008), faculty profile.