But reading is a skill requiring hard slow schooling. Language is innate but, as Steven Pinker says, text is “painstakingly bolted on.” Maryanne Wolf notes that reading has “no direct genetic program passing it on…” It can’t have: text has been widely available for only about 20 generations, and most of us have illiterate ancestors much more recently. Yet you are using your painstakingly acquired textual skills effortlessly, decoding this string of symbols without a second—or even a first conscious—thought. That thoughtlessness is a second-nature miracle, which billions of us routinely repeat. - http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/04/25/inheriting-second-natures/