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It is frustrating to read of studies endeavoring to study brain activity as related to reading and thinking. What the researchers are observing, in my opinion, is brain activity related to building a lexicon. Animals and children “think” without a lexicon. “Ethan” was intensely interested in symbols but not exceptional in relating those symbols to comprehension. We all experience having a thought without being able to recover the word that best fits it.

Richard Harem
Marfa, Texas

Written English is only barely phonetic, as anybody who has tried to explain ought , though , and through to a child knows. I wonder what the results would have shown for a more strongly phonetic language, such as Spanish or maybe Korean, which is phonetic but not linear.

Ivan Mann
Hoover, Ala.