The home of literacy is in the mind, and our mind is constructed for us in, and by, our brain. To understand literacy, and dyslexia, therefore, we need to understand how the literate brain does such things. This is cognitive psychology; the study of how normal brains do normal things. It is a fascinating pursuit of deeply mysterious procedures. It is our last frontier. The brain is extraordinarily swift and extraordinarily efficient but it is a profoundly reticent organ. Its processes and procedures are held secret from us. It carries out almost all its work in the maddeningly clandestine unconscious. Psychologists talk about the ‘black box’ paradigm. They mean by this that they see the brain as inscrutable; a black box we cannot open. Sometimes we are fairly certain more or less what information has gone into the box and, if we look intelligently enough, we can sometimes see reasonably accurately what comes out (a behaviour or decision perhaps). If we devise cunning experimental circumstances we can sometimes infer what processes probably took place in the box, but such inference is the closest we can presently get to a direct view. (Priming is a lovely example of such experimental method, and see the notes to chapter three). Inside the black box, of course, is our unconscious, a wonderful and infuriating mystery utterly hidden from our gaze. This is where cognitive psychology happens, and the things it can do are spectacular.

Consider Wimbledon. Our hero serves. His ball crosses the net at around 100 mph. We mortals call this sort of thing too fast to think about but, of course, that’s exactly what our hero has to do, because a return is coming back almost as fast as his serve. Our boy has a number of quick decisions to make. These will be based on learned information and recent experience. He has intensively studied the behaviour of tennis balls on tennis rackets and on grass courts in many situations and conditions. He has learned how to move and control his own body on a tennis court. He has learned to see very particular things, and to analyse what he sees at high speed. He has learned much about his opponent during this and previous matches. He has planned and observed his own last service. He has also observed, with very experienced eyes, his opponent’s body and racket address and movements, and those of the ball. In the light of all this he has assessed the trajectory, speed, height and spin of the return ball and its likely behaviour if it hits the grass. He is, though, still following through from his service. He must manage his own immediate behaviour instantaneously and in several respects. He has to close his follow through movements appropriately and set in train another complex of movements covering his entire body and, very specifically, his racket arm. He must, of course, follow the ball intently with his eyes and mind, precisely and continually monitoring its behaviour, while doing all this.

At the same time, however, our boy must also be acutely aware of his opponent’s behaviour. He studies and strategically analyses the body language displayed on the other side of the net. What does it tell him about the content of his opponent’s mind, where and how he expects the ball to come back, what he expects to happen next and how he will deal with it when it does? Our boy will only finalise the striking of his ball once he has decided where it should best be placed, in view of all the foregoing, such as to cause his opponent maximum difficulty in retrieving it. And all this mental computation must continue apace immediately after the strike as a flexible position close to the net must be swiftly taken up just in case his opponent does scrape a return.

Our hero smoothly executes all this coordinated perception, analysis and action and successfully (I feel he will be champion this year) strikes the ball soundly beyond the possibility of return. While all this has been going on, though, he may also have been considering long-term strategy: is his opponent getting nervous? Is he poorer today at baseline return than net play? Is his backhand particularly vulnerable today? Our hero may even have had time to wish that the overwrought but underdressed lady fan in the front row close to the service line and given to sudden screams of frenzied adoration, would go away and stay away.

And our hero has no idea whatsoever how any of this has been done. What mechanics, what wiring structures, what arrangement of brain cells and connections, what processes and procedures, could possibly have achieved all this stunning cognition so rapidly, efficiently and well and almost entirely without, apparently, involving ‘him’ at any stage – there having been no time for ‘conscious thought’?

Literacy (at least as I practise it) certainly appears to be less spectacular than the above, but the reading, writing and spelling we all perform with such effortless speed and accuracy is not so much less remarkable in fact. These early chapters will consider our mental processes and procedures, and admire our mental capabilities, with literacy at the front of the mind, but first we must examine the amazing brain (or should that be brains?) in our head.