Does reading boost intelligence in children? Explore the bidirectional relationship between reading and cognitive ability — what research shows about how books shape developing minds.
The Science of Why Some Kids Learn Faster Than Others
Every parent and teacher notices it: some children seem to absorb new concepts effortlessly, while others need considerably more time and repetition. What’s happening underneath these visible differences? The science points to a fascinating interplay of cognitive mechanisms — and some of the answers are surprisingly counterintuitive. Key Takeaway: Learning …
Growth Mindset: What the Meta-Analyses Show
Few ideas in education have spread as widely as Carol Dweck’s growth mindset — the proposal that believing intelligence is malleable rather than fixed produces better academic outcomes. Schools, corporate training, and parenting books have built programs around it, often presenting growth mindset as a transformative force. The honest answer …
Self-Control Strategies and SAT Outcomes
The standard advice for SAT preparation reads like a checklist: practice consistently, time yourself, learn the question types, manage stress, get enough sleep. Most of it is reasonable. None of it explains why some students manage to do this and others don’t. A 2022 study by Baldwin, Haimovitz, Shankar, Gallop, …
How Much Does Education Raise IQ?
That people with more education score higher on IQ tests is one of the oldest findings in psychology. The harder question is whether schooling causes the higher scores, or whether smarter children simply stay in school longer. Untangling the two requires research designs that go beyond ordinary correlation — and …
Mental Math Training and Cognitive Performance
The relationship between mental arithmetic skill and broader cognitive performance is more interesting than the conventional “math is hard” framing suggests. People who can rapidly retrieve simple arithmetic facts — the answer to 7 × 8 without conscious calculation — show measurably different cognitive profiles than people who solve the …
CHC Cognitive Abilities and Writing Achievement
Writing is one of the most cognitively demanding skills children acquire. It draws simultaneously on language, memory, motor coordination, attention, and reasoning, and it does so under the further constraint that all of those processes have to coordinate in real time to produce coherent text. A 2008 study by Floyd, …