Word: alphabet
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...children, uninterrupted by any "rest" bell, worked happily, rarely disturbed one another, automatically tidied up after each task. To learn the continents, three-year-olds used special jigsaw puzzles. To strengthen muscles for early writing, they traced complex metal plates that also introduced formal geometrical shapes. To practice the alphabet, one tot used big cards with the letters pasted on in sandpaper that he could feel. Four-year-olds used cut-out letters to spell the names of animals in pictures; many wrote the names, and several five-year-olds sat quietly reading books to themselves...
Moon Maps & Russian. "We started when they were still babies," recalls Mrs. Trifan. "They each knew the alphabet by their second birthday-it was sort of a birthday present." At three, each of the children could read. At six, each had passed third-grade subjects. Richard, 7, is now in Calvert's fifth grade, Daniel, 9, is in the seventh, and Marioara, 11, completed the eighth last June. This puts them three grades ahead of their ages...
Spaghetti & IQ. Such underestimation, says Mayer, is appallingly prevalent. The Denver school system, for example, officially "does not expect 'knowledge of order of alphabet' until junior high school." In general, the junior high seventh grade is deliberately easier than sixth grade so that everybody can "catch up." Sample class plan in New York City: "Industrial arts. Boys and girls wear aprons and hats; prepare spaghetti luncheon and eat it." As for bright children, grade-skipping is widely disapproved on grounds of "mental health." The approved practice is "enrichment"-not real digging at math or mythology but puerile "current...
...Massachusetts legislature with a one-minute speech ("I have no business talking to such a group of important men"), took time off from rehearsals for her International Revue to talk about a book she is writing: Marlene Dietrich's ABC's. Under each letter of the alphabet, Marlene will write about subjects that concern her. "I'm going to put President Kennedy in the book under Y and not K," she said. "For youth, you know." But writing comes hard to Marlene. "I've talked to Hemingway and everybody who knows about this problem of getting...
...suggests Manhattan Psychologist Victor Goertzel, president of the National Association for Gifted Children. By studying the lives of 350 well-known people, Goertzel, 46, is trying to discover what kind of families breed the species. From the first 77 cases-he is methodically working through the alphabet-Psychologist Goertzel reports, in The Gifted Child Quarterly, that...