Sold a Story - [GUEST EPISODE] Brains On: How Do We Learn to Read — and Why is It Hard?

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

This week we have an episode of a show called Brains On. It’s a science podcast for kids from our colleagues at APM. In this episode, Emily joins the Brains On hosts to talk about how people learn to read. Grab the kids in your life and listen to this special episode made for kids and curious adults.More: brainson.orgSupport our show: Donate to APM Reports

Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier or page description starting at 12.99 per month. Hi, this is Emily. We've got something special on the Soul to Story podcast feed. It's from our friends at

BrainsOn. BrainsOn is a science podcast for kids from American public media. I listened to an episode they did a few years ago about kids with dyslexia. It was good. I recommend it. And when Sulta's story came out, I got in touch with the producers of Brains On and I said, how about an episode for kids about how people learned to read? We heard from a bunch of kids in response to Soul to story. One woman wrote about her 10-year-old nephew's response. When he listened, she said, tears rolled down his face.

He realized he was a child who had been taught the poor strategies. We heard from kids who said listening to the podcast made them feel less alone. And we heard from adults who said listening to the podcast made them feel less alone. And we heard from adults who said the same thing. They didn't understand when they were little, why they had such a hard time learning to read. They were ashamed, kept it a secret. But it's nothing to be ashamed of. It's not uncommon to have a hard time with reading.

And as I said in Soul to Story, there are very, very smart people who struggle to learn how to read. So grab the kids in your life and the people who were once kids and maybe struggling to learn how to read and listen to today's episode of Brains on. And stay tuned to this podcast feed because we have a bonus episode of Solda's story coming soon. You're listening to Brains On, where we're serious about being curious. Brains On is supported on part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. So then I said, kitty, that kangaroo kept that kabob all to herself. Not very kind, and it was quite a crofuffle.

Hasn't that kangaroo heard of karma? Oh, letter K. Don't look now, but letter C is headed this way. And you're both wearing the same outfit again. Oh, M.G. this is so embarrassing. Every single alphabet party. Shh, here they come. Oh, hi, letter C. Hi, letter N.

Hello, letter K. Hello, letter C. Look, I wasn't gonna say anything, but you needed to stop copying me. Okay, I'm just gonna go. I'm really going to need you to stop making the c sound. It's too confusing. Excuse me?

You want me letter K to stop? C is all I do. Put me next to A, c. And I, c. E-O-U, c. And what happens when you get me next to a C and I C E O U C and what happens when you get put next to you? I don't know a letter E I make a saw sound

Excuse me? I couldn't hear you? I make a saw sound How about when you're next to the letter I? Fine, I make a saw sound But don't go around pretending you're all cuck all the time. I don't know what you're talking about. Well how about we talk about your good friend letter N who just scampered away. When you hang out with letter N you lose yourself entirely. That's right. When the two of you get together, all I hear is, nah, nah. You know KNOW, what I mean?

I know, I know, you're right. I need to stand up for myself. I can't just let letter N swallow me up. Look at me, here with my leg, kick it out! Hey, letter C, we're always stronger when we're together. You know what K, I-C-K spells? Kick! Let's kick it together! I hear there are some killer cookies kept on the snack, C-K-Cart.

Ooh, and cups of kettle corn. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ You're listening to Brains on from APM Studios. I'm Molly Bloom and I'm here with my co-host Anna from Brooklyn, New York. Hi, Anna. Hey, Molly. And today we're answering all of our listener questions about reading. A bunch of you have written to us wondering about it.

Like Isabel from Montreal. Why when do you know you can't read? My name is Colin and my name is Catherine and we're from Charlotte, Philadelphia, Virginia. Our question is, why do we read? These are great questions, but before we can answer them, we have to jump back in time to when we were babies. Babies are born not knowing how to do much. They're so cute. Big eyes, squishy legs, adorable little gummy smiles. They're also pretty helpless. Beyond eating, pooping, and sleeping, they can't do a lot.

But given some time, most babies will eventually figure out how to get around on their own and how to communicate with other people, just by watching the adults around them. Which is pretty amazing when you think about it. When it comes to reading though, most kids will not figure that out on their own. And that's because reading is a relatively new skill for humans. Right, our brains did not evolve to do this naturally. Our early human ancestors didn't read, so there's not a part of the brain that's labeled the reading part. Humans are really clever, though. About 5,000 years ago, people in the Middle East came up with a system to write down the words and ideas that had been spoken for generations.

But even after reading started, it still took a long time in history for reading and writing to catch on. It wasn't until pretty recently that reading became a normal, regular thing for most people to do, and they still have to work to learn it. Which brings us to our first question. What does it take to become a good reader? Let's clarify. There are lots of different languages out there. But we're talking today about what it takes to become a good reader of the English language.

There are two things you need to be able to do to be a good reader. First, you need to know what words mean. That's called language comprehension. Comprehension is another way of saying understanding. Understanding what words mean is not unique to reading. You need this to be a good listener and talk or two. And good language comprehension is something kids can pick up by talking to other people, watching TV shows, having books read to them, and listening to podcasts. The second language comprehension is something kids can pick up by talking to other people, watching TV shows, having books read to them, and listening to podcasts. The second part of being a good reader is being able to decode or figure out written words. And this is the tricky part. So let's break it down into steps.

Step one, recognizing letters. Let's think about the alphabet for a second. Sometimes letters of the alphabet are made with straight lines. Sometimes they're squiggly, and some of the letters look very similar to other letters. A lowercase B is the same as a lowercase D except backwards. Uppercase P and uppercase R are the same except R has a fancy little leg sticking out. It takes time to tell the difference between all these different shapes. Step two, matching letters with sounds.

So once you can tell the difference between a B and a D. An uppercase B looks like an uppercase D wearing a belt. Oh, you are so right. So once you can tell them apart, you can understand that they make different sounds. B makes a... B-b-b-b- sounds. And D makes a... D-d-d- sounds.

Then comes step three, sounding out words. That means you take what you've learned about the sounds letters make and put them together. So let's take the word B-A-T. You've learned the letter B makes a B sound. A makes an A sound. And T makes a T sound. So you look at B-A-T and you sound it out. B-A-T, B-A-T, B-A-T, B-A-T. And if you see the word C-A-b-at-bat.

And if you see the word C-A-T, you can do the same thing. C-at-c-at-cat. Woo-hoo! That's decoding. When you're learning to read this way, you'll start with simple words like these. Like dog or rag or fan. Right, simple three letter words. Then you'll start to get longer words to decode and here's where your previous knowledge of words comes in. Let's say you see the word W-A-t-e-r. Wuh. A-t-e-r. Watter. But your brain will say, Watter is not a word I know. So, you'll look at that A and say, huh, okay, that A can make different sounds. Not always A. Could it be water? Yes, water. And the further you get in your decoding journey, you'll start to learn some of the very confusing combos

that English uses. The cool thing about a language like Spanish is that there's one way to make each sound, and each letter only makes one sound. But that's not how English works. For example, what makes the F sound? F. Right. But you can also make the F sound by using the letters P and H together. P plus H equals F. Or in the word laugh, which is spelled, l-a-u-g-h, where is the fa sound

coming from? It's from the letters g and h. G plus h equals fa. Unless you're spelling the word ghost, which is g-h-o-s-t, and in this case, g plus H equals, Guh! Guh is right. Learning to read English is hard. But being taught how to decode words step by step paired with a good knowledge of lots of words has been proven by scientists to be the best way to learn to read.

Yeah, there's been lots and lots of research done over the years. They've looked at learning at every level in different languages and have compared different teaching methods. And the research shows that being able to decode words is key. You can't be a good reader without being good

at decoding words. Scientists have also looked at what happens in your brain when you learn to read. At first, your brain takes the slower route of breaking down each word into its parts. But the more you do this and the more comfortable you get, your brain starts to do it almost automatically. Yeah, after a while your brain recognizes the word

so quickly that you don't need to sound them out anymore. By the time you're a really good reader, you actually know tens of thousands of words instantly on sight. You don't have to figure them out. You just know them in a split second. It's pretty cool. So Anna was learning to read easy or hard for you. So learning to read for me was kind of confusing because I Learned to read obviously in like first grade in kindergarten.

And I felt like I could read and that I was a strong reader. But as I grew up, I realized that it was actually hard for me to sound outwards. And that instant sight word that you were talking about, I didn't have a lot of those. And it would take me a long time to read because I would have to sound out each word, even words that I should know. Yeah, what grade were you in when you figured out, like, oh, wait, maybe readings or not?

I think that is easy for me to do. Pretty early, my mom always used to make us read like 30 minutes a day. And that was always really hard for me. And I would always just be looking at the clock, wanting it to go away because it was just so frustrating for me. So I didn't know necessarily that something was wrong with my reading. I just thought I didn't like to read. Got it. So do you remember being taught how to read? I remember a lot of it being independent. taught how to read? I remember a lot of it being independent. Our teachers are assigning us different levels and then kind of giving us books, maybe working in small

groups to read these books that were placed next to pictures. I would say that I more learned picture and word memory than actually standing outwards. We would see a picture of a cat and then C-A-T and be told that cat equals this picture. So then we would, are they wanted our brains to automatically be able to recognize cat as C-A-T from picture and word recognition? So it's kind of like you were being taught to skip the sounding out part and kind of go

right to the sight word part. Yes, exactly. Got it. And what grade are you in now? I'm in ninth grade, so freshman and high school. And when did reading become easier for you? Reading never really became easier. I never saw it something that was hard necessarily. I just saw it kind of as something I didn't like. But as I this year, especially, I've realized that I actually just have trouble reading. It's not that I don't like it. It's that it's frustrating for me because I never really learned how to read and decode properly. So now this year, it's just reading in general my relationship with it has became so much better. That is great. And you are very much not alone. It turns out that a lot of kids were not taught how to decode words even though that's been proven to be the

best way to learn to read. We're going to hear more about that in a minute, but first we have something else for your ears to break down, not a word, but a... Shhh! Mystery sound! Ready for the Mystery Sound, Anna? Yes. Alright, here it is. Hmm.

Do I hear it again? Yes. What are your thoughts? I think that's the sound of pages being flipped. Hmm. Very good, I guess. We're here again after the credits. See if you feel the same way or you have a new guess and we'll hear the answer.

So stick around. We're working on an episode about how creatures would evolve on other planets? So we want you to do a little dreaming with us. Imagine you find life on another planet. How would that life greet you? What would it sound like in their language to say hi? Would they even have a language or would they greet you another way? Anna, if you found a living creature on another planet, how do you imagine they would say hi? I imagine that they would say hi in a very different way that we say hi.

I think that a lot of animals that I've seen say hi to each other more by going up to each other and touching each other. So I imagine this new creature saying hi to another creature by going up to it. Maybe wagging their tail. I love that. Maybe a big hug. Yeah, maybe. Well, listen, we want to hear how you imagine an alien creature would say hi. Record yourself and send it to us at BrainsOn.org slash contact. While you're there, you can also send us mystery sounds, drawings and questions. Like this one. My question is how do you hurt your hands for? You can find an answer to that question on our moment of um podcast. It's a daily dose

of facts and curiosity you can find wherever you listen to Brains on. Again, that's BrainsOn.org slash contact. And keep listening. What you watch depends on what kind of majoring. Sometimes you're craving comedies like friends or South Park and sometimes you're more into dramas like HBO's Succession and House of the Dragon. There's also cooking shows like Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay and even movies like The Lord

of the Rings and Shazam, Fury of the Gods. Well, Max is the streaming destination that has the best of entertainment for whatever mood you're in anytime. And Plants start at as little as $9.99 a month. Max, the one to watch. Subscription required. Visit max.com. You're listening to Brands On from APM Studios. I'm Anna and I'm Molly. Okay, so we just heard about the best ways to learn to read according to lots and lots of research.

I love lots and lots of research, so helpful. I know. So, you'd think teachers would be all about these findings that they'd be teaching everyone to read, starting by learning the letters, then sounding things out and going from there. But that's not always what's happening. To find out more, we talked with someone who knows a lot about this. Hi, I'm Emily Hanford. I'm a reporter at American Public Media and a cover education. Emily made a podcast called Sold a Story.

It's about how lots of kids were having trouble learning to read. Emily found out that these kids were being taught in a way that just wasn't working. It all started when she was talking to different parents who kept telling her the same story. And the story goes like this. My kid entered school and I knew something wasn't quite right and I went to the teacher and the teacher said, don't worry about it, it'll be fine. And a lot of cases things work fine. Sometimes the kids seemed like they could read it first. Books with simple words

and lots of pictures. But as the words in the book got more complicated and the pictures went away, the kid would struggle. Sometimes the kid had memorized words that they'd seen lots of times before, but they couldn't figure out new words. And it only says many of these kids felt sad or angry or frustrated. And it was having an impact on their ability to learn

in other subject areas like math and science and social studies. And in a lot of cases, they were starting to really not like school. They didn't want to go to school. They were being really resistant. And it was all becoming really, really hard. She wondered what was going on.

She couldn't figure it out until she talked to one kid in particular and something clicked. I was asking her what she remembered about being taught to read. And she said to me, the teacher would show me a picture of a cat and then point to the word and say, here's the word cat. And then if this little girl didn't know a word in a book, she was trying to read, the teacher told her to guess based on the picture. And I remember her telling me that and being struck by that description. Emily thought it was strange that this girl was being taught to memorize each word

or to guess, but not to sound out the words. We're going to call this approach the whole word way of reading. Because instead of sounding words out letter by letter, you're trying to figure out the whole word. As opposed to the sounded out or decoding method where you start by sounding out the letters. Right. And the more Emily looked into it, the more she saw that this whole word way of teaching kids was everywhere.

Classes all around the country were telling students to memorize a word and what it looks like. And if they didn't know a word, they should guess based on what would make sense. The problem is, you're not going to be right that much of the time. is, you're not going to be right that much of the time. Just guessing at a few of the words on the page can really make the whole meaning of the story seem different. Like, say you're reading a story. And you see a sentence full of words you don't know. So, you make some guesses based on the first letters you see. Maybe you think the sentence says, it's dinner and a bunch of bears are invited. They're bringing plates and cups,

and one of them shared the napkins. You'd think you're reading a story about some very polite grizzly bears. Oh, look, the bears are at the door. Oh, good. The table is ready. We'll be having Duck on Fee, Niswa salad, and a Tardo Fram was for dessert. Oh look, they brought fine-china and crystal glasses! And these napkins, these napkins

are, are they linen? Absolutely exquisite! But really, the sentence didn't actually say it's dinner and a bunch of bears are invited. They're bringing plates and cups and one of them shared the napkins. It actually said it's dinner and a bunch of bears are invading. They're breaking plates and cups and one of them shredded the napkins. Oh no, bears are at the door. Goodness, they're eating the duck on sea in the east was salad. Oh no, not the tart, Franbois.

That was more dessert. Oh, and they're breaking the fine china and the crystal. And they've shredded the linen napkins. Not the linen napkins. That is like but the linen napkins! If you were just guessing those words using the first few letters, it would be pretty easy to make this kind of mistake. After all, the words invite and invade, bringing and breaking, shared and shred, they look kind of similar at first. Emily says once she realized this, it started making sense why so many kids were having a tough time. Students could guess words if they were reading a simple book. But as the books got more complicated and had fewer pictures, the kids who had been reading

OK before suddenly couldn't figure things out. So why weren't teachers seeing this? Why were they still teaching this whole word way? Especially when lots and lots of research said the decoding way was better. To understand that, you have to realize that for a long, long time, we had no idea how a kid learned to read. There were lots of different ideas, but we did not have strong research telling us what worked.

The whole word-wave teaching has been around for a long time, all the way back to when public school started, and it got really popular. And it made sense to a lot of teachers. In fact, Emily thinks the reason so many teachers loved the whole word approach was because it seemed like it helped kids skip the hard part of reading, the part where you have to slowly sound out each word. They wanted kids to get to the good part, and the good part is being able to read a book

and understand it and really enjoy it, really love it. And so I think with really good intentions, a lot of teachers wanted to help kids get to the good part. It seemed like it helped kids start reading whole words faster. So the whole word approach was really popular in schools. And then, scientists started doing more of those studies we mentioned earlier.

And they found that sounding things out was actually a way, better way to teach kids to read. But a lot of schools and educators were already super invested in the whole word approach, and they didn't want to change what they thought was working. It wasn't until decades later, after lots and lots of research came out, and books were written about this, and reporters like Emily told this story, that some schools started rethinking how they taught kids to read.

So I think things are changing. There are people in state legislatures across the country who are passing laws that are saying schools need to teach kids how to read based on all the scientific research. They're giving money for teachers to get training, for schools to buy new books and materials. I think it's an exciting moment. But a lot of kids and grownups

were taught the whole word way of reading, and they might still have a hard time reading. So the first thing you have to understand is, you're not dumb. That's Karim Weaver. He knows a lot about kids and reading. I know it may feel like it because everything's moving so fast around you

and you're trying and you've tried hard and it's like you just can't get it. That's not it. You need to find somebody, some adult that's willing to help. Kareem runs a nonprofit focused on helping kids learn how to read and he used to teach fourth and fifth grade. He says even if reading isn't fun for you, that's okay, but it's still an important skill to have. What you do with it is up to you. And whether you like it or not is up to you. But you'll be a better worker or business owner or student or husband or wife or neighbor

or whatever if you can read. And I want you to be able to read the job application. I want you to be able to read your paperwork. I want you to be able to read the job application. I want you to be able to read your paperwork. I want you to be able to read the instructions. When that sign says stop, I want you to know what it means. Basically, don't give up on becoming a good reader if you've had trouble. You might just need some different instruction.

Kareem is also a parent. And he has some advice for parents who want to help. He recommends a book called 100 Easy Lessons, which you can find a link to in our show notes. And he says it's very important to test kids early for learning differences like dyslexia. That's when a person's brain can have special challenges learning to decode words.

We have a whole episode about dyslexia if you want to learn more. Once Cream's daughter got tested, she was able to get help and now she's thriving. That sounds a lot like my story. Right. You mentioned earlier that you had some trouble with reading. And your mom, like Cream, is a teacher, and she came along with you today. So we thought that maybe she would join us for this next section. Hi, Susie.

Hi, Mom. Hi, Anna. Molly, thanks so much for having me on the show today. Well, thank you for being here. Susie, what grade do you teach? I teach first grade. Susie and Anna, when did it finally click? Like, what was happening with Anna? It wasn't that she just didn't like reading,

but she was like really struggling. So after just kind of years in all honesty, last year, which was the year before ninth grade, she had a reading list and she came to me, and I noticed that she wasn't reading it and I was frustrated because I thought she just didn't want to read it and what was the problem and then she told me that she actually was having

a lot of trouble reading and it was really hard for her to read the words and read the books. And so then I really wanted to figure out a way to help her because I realized that it was a problem and that she needed help. So Anna, how was that when you went to your mom this past summer? How did that feel to you?

When I went to my mom and we agreed that I needed some sort of help to really thrive reading, I felt super relieved. I felt relieved because I thought like something was wrong with me and that I just didn't like reading and I just wasn't that smart. I really realized how I struggled reading in front of the class and that was always something I never wanted to do. I was always so embarrassed who sometimes kids would laugh when I would mispronounce words. And I always have wanted to love reading, like my role models, like my mom, my dad, and my brother do.

They always would be talking about books at dinner, and my older brother would always brag about how many pages he read. And I would always be like, how is that possible to read that many pages in a short amount of time? And also, how is it possible to like reading? I really realized that I did not know how to decode words at all when I went over with my mom, the sounds of each letter in the alphabet

and I literally just did not know them. I didn't realize there was an important difference between the I sounds and the E sounds. So when I found out that it was actually something wrong with how I sounded out words, I was so relieved and hopeful that I saw the chance to love reading and made me understand why people love reading.

It's because they have a different experience while reading that I did. So Suzy, I'm wondering how is being a mom similar to being a teacher and how is it different? So like when you saw Anna struggling with reading, how does that compare with the kids in your classroom? I think in both cases, just with my kids

and my students, I definitely think of my kids also, just in the classroom. I want them all to reach their full potential and to believe in themselves and not think that it's something that's wrong with them if they're having trouble, but it's something that we can work together to become stronger.

Did my struggles with reading change anything about how you teach reading to your students? So it absolutely did. It really made me focus even more on decoding strategies and making sure everyone of my first graders will have the skills themselves to decode any word and every word that they come across. And Susie, were you taught the whole word method

of teaching reading? So when I went to teaching school, when I went to grad school, I was much more taught the whole word or whole language way of teaching reading, where there wasn't as much emphasis on decoding or sounding the words out, and I've really flipped my teaching to really focus so much more on those decoding and the sounding out words. Are you seeing that flip happening with other schools and teachers?

I am, I mean, I talk to teachers all the time at different schools and about this and sold a story, I think really articulated what teachers are seeing, how different teachers have learned. And so it's really helped me just even learn, I think as a teacher, you're always learning more. And so for me, it's been pretty amazing and great to really learn all these information, all this research,

and then transition that and put it into my teaching. That's amazing. I think it's really good for kids to know too that your teachers are learning all the time. And they're figuring out the best way to teach. And you never stop learning, even when you're grown up. Exactly. And Anna, I would love to know what you want to say to kids listening to this, Climbshire, that we have a lot of listeners who've had struggles with reading and it might make them feel bad. Like it, you know, you said you felt like maybe you just weren't smart, which is clearly not true.

So what do you want to tell our listeners? Listening today. I want every listener to know that even though we hear from parents and teachers and friends that reading is this great fun thing, that it can also be really frustrating and that you're not alone or you're not being lazy or you're not bored or unsmart if you really just don't want to read, it's just because it's frustrating when you're first learning. And even if you're older, you're still like learning and it's not your fault. And it's like a process, the tutoring process that I'm in right now for reading and how it can be really frustrating and how it's conceived tedious and just like improving is hard. And it's not this easy switch that will occur.

It's, you really have to work and you have to engrave this in your brain. And I think it's really important. And I'm still learning how to do this, but stay patient and really realize that the end goal will be worth it. And also just the most important thing that Anna did, I think she asked for help. And I think that that's something that whether you're in first grade, whether you're a ninth grader, whether you're a grown-up, if you're having trouble and you're not sure why, and you don't know why, these things aren't coming together, that it's so important just to ask for help.

You can ask your grown-up, you can ask a teacher, but I think that that's the way that we were able to help Anna is because she spoke up and she could say, I need help. I'm so glad that my mom was so helpful and supportive and she really reassured me that it wasn't my fault. And I'm so thankful that my mom was so helpful and supportive in the process. And I'm just so proud of Anna for coming and saying that she needed help, but then also being willing to put in the work that she needs to put in to go through all this, to really connect those sounds with the letters, and she has really been committed. And so I'm very proud of her for doing that,

and I'm just, I'm so excited and happy for her that we're figuring this out. Human brains are usually pretty good at learning to move and communicate without much help, but reading is different because it's such a new skill for our species. Research says the best way to learn to read is to start by learning the letters and the sounds that go with them. And then sound out words letter by letter until you get so good your brain can recognize words super fast. Not everyone was taught to read this way though. If you want to get better at reading, there are lots of ways to do it. Just ask for help. That's it for this episode of Brains on. This episode was produced by Molly Bloom,

Grovese DePont, Anna Goldfield, Aron Woldeslassy, Anna Weggle, Nico Gonzalez-Whistler, Molly Quinlan, Ruby Guthrie, and Mark Sanchez. Many super duper special thanks to Emily Hanford for her reporting and helping us with this episode. We highly recommend listening to her whole series, Sold a Story. You can find it wherever you listen to Brains on, or at soldastory.org. Our editors are Sandin Totten and Shayla Farzon. This episode was sound designed by Rachel Breeze,

and we had engineering help from Gary O'Keefe and Derek Rumirez. Beth Pearlman is our executive producer, the executives in charge of APM Studios, our Chandra Cavanti, Alex Schaffert, and Joanne Griffith. Special thanks to Susie Brandmeyer. Brains on is a nonprofit public radio program. There are lots of ways to support the show. Head to brainson.org.

While you're there, you can send in questions. And fan art. We love getting fan art from you. You can also subscribe to our Smarty Pass. When you do, you'll get ad-free episodes and super special bonus stuff. SmartyPass.org. Okay, Anna, are you ready to hear the mystery sound again? Yes, I'm really excited to see what it is.

Me too. Any new thoughts? I don't know. I'm so sticking with my page flip theory. Very good theory. I have no idea what it is either, and that's what I thought too. So let's see if our brains got it. Here is the answer. Hi, I'm Samuel, and I'm Arian.

And I was a sound of us flipping the pages of a book. Hey! Yay! Anna so good! Excellent years. Nice work. Now it's time for the brains honor role. These are the kids who keep the show going with their questions ideas, mystery sounds, drawings and high fives. As me and Cleo from Philadelphia, June and Carrie from Rolly North Carolina, Eli from Spokane, Washington, Mani from Fargo, Harrison from Santa Monica, California, Noah from Vancouver, Miles from Tennessee, Maya from Minneapolis, Martha from Forest Lake, Minnesota, Simon from Los Angeles, Wesleyan Annelly, from Rockford, Illinois, Jason from Cupertino, California,

Viola from Seattle, Parker from Dover, Ohio, Christopher from Ashburn, Virginia, Colby, Asher, Ren, and Milo from Belvedere, Illinois, Sam from Exeter, Rhode Island, Poppy from Toronto, Nate and Samantha from Stanford, Connecticut, Kazuki from San Jose, California, Haywood from Richmond, British Columbia, Navi from Olympia, Washington, Julian from Wakefield, Quebec, Cassie from Washington, DC, Aditya from Big Rapids, Michigan,

Eli and Arthur from New York City, Maddie from Brooklyn, New York, Autumn from Floyd, DC, Aditiya from Big Rapids, Michigan, Eli and Arthur from New York City, Maddie from Brooklyn, New York, Autumn from Floyd, Virginia, Jimmy from Sumamish, Washington, Grayson Seth from Portland, Oregon, Xavier Hugo, and Tile from Johannesburg, South Africa, DJ from Garnerville, New York, Jonathan from North, Andover, Massachusetts, Crudy from Miami, Clark from Pittsburgh, Amely from Keely, England, Ryan from Sterling, Massachusetts, Leo from Pittsburgh, New York, Aurora from Sydney, Australia, Amira and Corbin from Memphis, Tennessee. Reese Afton and Drake from Harrisburg, South Dakota, Noi and Olly from Spokane, Washington. Logan and Mila from West Midlands, England, Leo from Manchester, UK.

Jaden from Seamy Valley, California, Evelyn and mid from Banger, Maine. Elliott from Mount Erie, North Carolina, T-Bow from Hillsboro, California. Lucas from Flowery Branch, Georgia. Jack from Benicia, California.Bow from Hillsboro, California, Lucas from flowery branch, Georgia, Jack from Benicia, California, Hazel from San Carlos, California, Ryshe from Frisco, Texas, Elliott from San Francisco, Corbin from Gresham, Oregon, Charlie Daniel, Liam from St. Louis, Dolce from Hobart, Australia, Matthew from San Diego, Phoebe and Owen from Santa Barbara, California, Aria from St. Louis, Axel from Perth, Australia, Noah and Sammy from Decker, Indiana, Sophia from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Brendan, Donovan, Catalina, Lucía, Alena, and Isabella from

Khai Lua, Hawaii, Ellie and Henry from Shoreview, Minnesota, Dexter and Phoenix from Yarbalinda, California, and Ada from St. Paul, Minnesota. In 2012, a new charity bursts onto the scene. It's called Believe in Magic and it grants wishes to seriously ill children. It has the support of the biggest boy band in the world, one direction. It's run by an inspirational 16-year-old girl called Meghan Barley, who herself is battling a brain tumor. I've been in and out of hospital and seen so many other very poorly children.

But when questions arise about her story, they reveal she could be facing another very different danger. What is this girl going through? It wasn't supposed to have light there. Listen to Believe in Magic, with me, Jamie Bartlett. Listen to Believe in Magic with me, Jamie Bartlett.