A reading brain area emerges around age eight and matures by adolescence

Evidence

This means that highly literate people have different brains than those who are illiterate because they’ve trained their brains to read. Learning to read specializes your brain for visually processing whatever writing system you are working on. The better you can read, the more specialized the wiring of your brain is for reading. In American children, the letterbox begins to appear around age eight but doesn’t reach maturity until adolescence, assuming the child continues reading. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 852

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Intensive learning physically rewires brain structure and perceptual habits.

Broader Connections

• Intensive learning physically rewires brain structure and perceptual habits. #expands (0.78)