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At my grandson’s interschool soccer tournament yesterday, I found myself in conversation with his school principal. He told me my grandson has hit his yearly target of one million words read and will be recognised at the school harvest assembly. This was news to me, so I asked what the thinking behind the programme was.
The principal explained that the million-word benchmark is a practical way to build vocabulary and cognitive stamina, which he described as the biggest driver of long-term career and financial success. Over several decades, the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation tested tens of thousands of professionals across industries and found that vocabulary size was the best single predictor of occupational level and earning power. It tracked income and managerial rank more closely than native IQ or years of formal schooling.
A child who reads a million words a year, he said, meets roughly 85,000 different words in context. That builds what economists call crystallised intelligence: the ability to follow complex arguments, write persuasively and communicate clearly when the stakes are high.
He then turned to the money. Labour market data from the US and UK suggests that adults with “proficient” prose literacy earn around $1,000,000 more over a 40-year career than those with basic or below-basic skills.
I never got to ask a follow-up, because a pupil was fouled and the principal went sprinting across the pitch to share his views on the referee’s decision. Still, the conversation stuck with me. If I’d read more in junior school, might I have an extra million in my retirement account? (I’d settle for a decent COLA adjusted pension and a better vocabulary for describing referees.)
As for the match, poor refereeing notwithstanding, the team won and moved on to the next round of the school cup. So if reading doesn’t make my grandson his extra million, perhaps sport will.
Excellent post, Mark. I sent it to my oldest grandchild, who is in 9th grade, with the comment that the more he reads now, the more his future self will appreciate and benefit from it.
Mark, I can’t make any claims to extraordinary lifetime earnings, still, as one who was a poor reader until taking a speed reading class in 9th grade, I can say without any doubt that reading enhanced my life in many ways.
Reading taught me about investing, (I’m still learning), and opened the door to my becoming a tax preparer. I get much enjoyment from reading a good book. Reading even led me to the lovable characters at the HumbleDollar.
Dan, I’ve always been a voracious reader, though never of the literary classics. Science fiction is my lifelong love, and Asimov and Philip K. Dick fuelled most of my early reading. I’m currently revisiting Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos, which must come close to a million words on its own. Dick’s Princeton man would probably call that functionally illiterate, but I’d argue a passion for any genre helps round out your education. In my case, it eventually led me to HumbleDollar, which may be the most far-fetched story of all: a place where people discuss money sensibly
Sounds logical to me. I was a very average student throughout school, but in one area I excelled- reading. Even in grammar school I read at two to three grades higher than where I was expected to be. That was my only claim to fame, but it served me well.
It didn’t impress everyone though. I once worked with an older man, a Princeton graduate who made sure everyone knew it. He treated me well even though I was a clerk and he was a senior officer, but he had no trouble telling me I was functionally illiterate – at least by Princeton standards I guess.