The other day, I came across a scholarly article called, “What Reading Does for the Mind.” It’s an oldie, originally published in 1998 in a journal from the American Federation of Teachers. It discusses kids’ unique sponginess, and the notion that most of the vocabulary we develop when we’re young comes from exposure in our environment, rather than through direct instruction. But it goes a step further, suggesting that written word has a much greater influence than spoken on kids’ developing lexicons.