What's your IQ? Don't you know?

If you were a kid in the early 1970s, you may have been given the "Intelligence Quotient" (IQ) test, which was heralded as the definitive indicator of potential and determined whether you were destined to be a rocket scientist, a corporate mogul, or sweeping the floors at NASA.

I was one of the cusp kids who took the IQ test, and the results were shared with us.

But by the 1990s, something fascinating happened: Emotional Intelligence, or EQ, entered the conversation.

One of the easiest—and funniest—ways grandparents can help build literacy skills is by getting things wrong on purpose.

Yes, on purpose.

I tried this recently while visiting my grandkids, and they had a blast. I deliberately called things by the wrong name, mixed up familiar words, and acted completely confident about my ridiculous answers. They caught me every time—and were absolutely delighted to be the ones correcting Carma.

Call the dog a cat. Skip a word in a favorite story. Point to a cow and confidently say, “Look at that beautiful horse!”

You're standing at the stove making pancakes, chattering away to your grandbaby strapped in the high chair about the batter, the bubbles, the smell of it all, and you catch yourself wondering, does any of this actually do anything?

Yes. It really does.

Here's the idea in plain terms: think of words like food for a growing brain. The more good "language nutrition" a child gets in those first few years- real talk, real back-and-forth, real attention. The stronger their vocabulary, thinking skills, and eventually their reading will be.