The Knowledge Deficit: Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American Children

by E.D. Hirsch Jr.

In the information age, the key to economic and political achievement is the ability to gain new knowledge rapidly through reading and listening.

This is very much aligned with the message of Deep Work by Cal Newport. It is clearly a new competitive advantage.

a child or an adult needs to understand around 90 percent of the words in a passage in order to learn to understand the other 10 percent of the words.

According to Stephen Krashen it's rather 70-80%.