ABSTRACT
Notwithstanding the proven pathways of learning to read in alphabetic and other language codes, there is no assurance that these will withstand the changing requirements for teaching initial reading in future, specifically when they are impacted by AI tools in education. There is a caveat, though: until the time when AI may change human teaching and learning as we know it, teachers can add some useful knowledge to their personal pedagogical libraries – they can study the human brain, and how its anatomy and physiology relate to the neuronal mechanisms of learning to read. The chapter suggests that basic neuroscience knowledge about learning to read should be included in the toolkit of teachers and that this could alleviate the challenges that teachers may face, such as the difficulties encountered by the teachers in the case study that we discuss briefly.
