Don't get me wrong, I was a serious student and I did very well in high school. But after homework, it never really occurred to me to pick up a book for leisure. I've since changed my behavior. I'm an avid reader now. Healy highlights the relationship between reading the development of skills in concentration, reasoning and verbal ability.
Children develop reasoning abilities as their capacity to use language expands.
Inner speech requires quite, contemplated time. Reading can facilitate the development of this inner speech. Being bombarded with sights and sounds of video games or TV or blasting commercials does not facilitate inner speech, but may, in fact, drown it out. As a nation, our attention span seems to be waning. I have heard estimates that 20 percent of the people purchase 80 percent of the books in this country.