How to Engage the Mind and the Imagination

Most conversation is plain and simple, whether it's between two adults or with children. 83% of the words in normal conversation with a child come from the most commonly used thousand words. The eventual strength of our vocabulary is determined not by the 10,000 common words, but by how many rare words we understand. An adult uses only 9 rare words per thousand when talking to a 3-year-old,. There are three times as many in a children's book, and more than seven times as manyin a newspaper.