The Educability Level
The determination of competency to do the work of the first school year. :Author: Gladys G. Ide, Ph.D., Psychological Clinic, University of Pennsylvania.
The Kindergarten was chosen as the place of this experiment because of its accessibility and because it was free from the requirements which a Kindergarten in the city system would have had to meet. The neighborhood in which this kindergarten is located is one of the worst in the city, and the children coming from the homes in this district are not representative of the great mass of children entering the first grade. There were thirteen children in the class. Of these three were from Polish homes where the language was predominantly Polish, and two from Yiddish homes, where the foreign language was spoken. One child came from an Italian home but in this case the family all spoke English.
The children with whom the experiment was made were all past five years of age. Four were six years of age, and one was seven. The kindergarten where their training for the past year has been, is a most attractive place, with the best of pictures on the walls, a piano, goldfish, plants, and clean walls and floors. The teachers are welltrained in kindergarten work. A lunch is given to the children in mid-morning, accompanied with a glass of whole milk. The conditions as far as the kindergarten is concerned, are excellent. The aim of the experiment was to determine as far as possible the number of children who will be able to do the work of the first grade when they enter school in the fall of 1919. The method used was teaching the children by means of material which was available at the time, material often used merely as test material, but which is as truly valuable for didactic use. This included the Witmer formboard and cylinders, the Healy puzzles, both A and B, the Knox series of puzzles, three-, four- and five-piece picture puzzles, picture puzzles of animals and birds of from twelve to fifteen pieces, and picture puzzles of much greater complexity. With these were included color cubes, sticks, primers and anagrams. It was not the purpose of the experiment to continue teaching beyond a point where it seemed that the child was able to clearly indicate his ability to progress. Time and a Board ‘of Managers conspired to limit the length of the experiment. Altogether, three weeks’ instruction of forty-five minutes per day were given.
With the exception of two cases, the homes of the children were very bad. The general standard of living for all was very low, in one case the mother is a prostitute, and the conditions which follow this surround the child. In two other cases this is suspected, and the - tone of the family is low. In two cases the father and mother fight to the scandal of the neighborhood; in another two cases the mother is a widow and having difficulty in keeping the family together. The children, with perhaps three exceptions, are poorly nourished. Two are positively ill, one is obviously feebleminded and in poor physical condition. One child is a victim of syphilis. Pediculosis abounds among the children and one child has eczema.
The children were introduced to the Witmer formboard. But one child failed to perform this test correctly the first time. This child was able to complete the test correctly the second time without teaching. The children were uniformly successful with the cylinder test. No attempt was made to hasten the performances, and no time limit was made. The test was given the child and he was left to his own devices until he had completed it, the only requirement made was that he should continue his work until it was finished, or until he appeared fatigued to the point where the test was of no further value as didactic material for the time being. Later he would be given the material a second time, or more if necessary. No instruction was permitted. The same procedure was followed with the Knox and Healy tests and with the picture puzzles. In every case, the children found these a source of delight. The rapid workers were able to conquer four or five of these tests in a period. Slow workers often spent an entire period on one test, but it was to their own satisfaction as well as to that of the experimenter. A regular series of graded material was given with the color cubes, the whole class working together. With the exception of three who were absent, all of the children were able to do some of the designs. The first design was a solid color square of four cubes, the second a square of alternate colors, the third a square within a square, the fourth a chevron, the fifth a line of one color across a square of a solid color, and the sixth a zigzag design with eight blocks, really formed of a double chevron. Six of the children did the entire series, two, all but one of the series, one the first three of the series and one the first two. Neither of the latter were able to finish more than those they had finished the first day, and none of them liked the material. Of the three absent, all could make the more difficult designs on other occasions when the graded series were not used. With the exception of one child, all the children were able to put together picture puzzles of fifteen pieces. One or two on account of illness were unable to try this series.
With the exception of one child, the memory spans were either four or five, and one child had a memory span of six. The poorest child had a memory span of three, and this could not be raised to another digit in ten trials. The other children all had good enough trainability to raise their memory span in digits to the group one higher in less than ten repetitions.
Only the best of the group were able to put together the larger picture puzzles. These were the children who had the best memory span and the best trainability. There were six of these children. None of the other children wished to try the more difficult work, asking often for the formboards rather than the picture designs. Of the successful group two were six years old and the remainder five. All of the children could count at least to five. They were able to lay out sticks or use other objects as counters, and to compute their small combinations up to that limit. Only the best six were able to state at once what two and two were, and how many were left from three when one was taken away. The others could count it up and find out, but did not seem to get the idea without counting. The time consumed in the practise of this sort of thing was not great enough to warrant the judgment that the others might not be able to learn their combinations in this way. With anagrams, the children learned to pick out letters when shown a model, and to make words with the letters when a model was before them. Six of the children appeared interested in this kind of work, but not to the extent that is common among the children of a first-class first grade, and the others paid no more attention than was strictly required of them. One child did not learn any of letters or words, and one learned a good many more than was required, asking for information. All of the children had been this present year in the kindergarten, most of them were there last year, and one from the year before. The kindergarten teacher stated that the children were bored with the regular work, and she was somewhat at loss what to do with them. Much of the work given to the children was games and free play. It was early noted that few of the children actually took part in the singing, and little effort on their part was expended in keeping place in the line. In fact, much of their training seemed to fit them for performing an act automatically without paying the slightest attention to what they were doing. The children did not pay attention to their mates, but gazed around the room, ran to the toilet, and in other ways withdrew into their own cosmos as much as possible. As a result of this, the attention of the children was easily distracted, and a large part of the effort expended upon them had to be directed toward the end of securing some concentration of attention. The order was of the usual kindergarten “free play” variety, and it was necessary here to subdue the children to some degree in order that work of a sort might be done. The work was much aided by the director of the kindergarten who tried to get the children actually to do the work rather than to appear to do it, and some marked changes, especially with one boy, were made during the experiment.
The kindergarten teacher reported but one child of the group really able to tell her a story after having heard it. She reported several children unable to give the English names of the most simple of the childish imitations made in the songs the children played, although the movements had been made to order. Five of the children came from homes where only a foreign language was spoken, and one of these childreu was particularly to be noted in her lack of the English tongue. None of the five gave promise of ability up to the point necessary for the first grade, and with the further handicap of lack of language it seems improbable that they will do well in school.
Besides the five children previously mentioned in regard to language deficiency, two more of the children are physically unable to compete with others in the grades. They do not now average more than fifty per cent attendance at the kindergarten on account of their physical ailments. One of these particularly is in extremely poor condition, and the home conditions are such that little hope can be given for co-operation in this quarter. There is a Dispensary at the Deaconess Home, but it is reported that it takes a long time to get the people to a point where they are willing to send their children there, the general feeling among them being that a child taken to the hospital is already dead. One other child, he of the three memory span, is well past six, and yet of much less development mentally than any child of the group. He belongs to the group who do not speak English at home, and is deserving of special mention because of the added mental disabilities.
Six of this group of thirteen children are able to do school work. Seven do not now seem of sufficient mental or physical development to warrant their placement in a regular grade. Bad habits can be eradicated, but the real disabilities of language deficiency and physical inadequacy are not considered in the first grade, and will tend to force these children into special classes, or prevent them from making regular progress in the grades.
Reports of Individual Children.
Julia?Gave an excellent performance with the formboard the first day. Her cylinder performance was good for her age. Her memory span is five with six on five repetitions. After fifteen minutes she was able to do Healy B.
Julia is five years, two months old. She is a tall thin child, easily excited. Her home is fairly good, and some effort is made to care for the child physically, but she is out to the movies several nights per week, and the staple articles of her diet are coffee and bread. At the kindergarten she has a glass of milk and a piece of bread in the middle of the morning. Her tonsils are slightly enlarged and her teeth in need of care. The most noticeable characteristic which she shows is easy distractibility of attention.
Julia showed no interest in attempting to learn words or letters when tried on the second day. Her attention could not be held to the task of learning A, B and C when she was a member of a group as was necessary under the conditions under which the experimenter worked. Responses were made as somebody else, equally inattentive, responded. Since this condition seemed to be a matter of training, both at home where the children ate and slept, and at the kindergarten where they played games in which no great effort was made to require attention, Julia was given material which she could work on individually, and which it was hoped would prevent her, through its interest, from permitting her attention to wander at every stimulus. To this end, the Knox series of puzzles were given her. These she easily conquered in two sessions. Next she did picture puzzles of three, four and five parts. From these she graduated into picture puzzles of from twelve to fifteen parts. No encouragement was needed with the Knox tests. She liked to do these, and would spend the fortyfive minute period working these out without asking for anything else to do, running to the toilet or any other of the thousand and one devices she had used the previous two days to avoid trying. Praise was the incentive used to get her to try more elaborate picture puzzles, for these required a sustained effort on one thing longer than she cared to maintain. Long after some of the others refused to play with the Knox puzzles, she still tried to spend all her time upon them. The color cubes were distasteful to her, and it was only after she was firmly told she had to try them that she would touch them. Then she succeeded in making a solid color square, a square of alternate colors, a square within a square, a chevron, a line square, and the zigzag. After discovering how well she could perform these tests, she volunteered to make designs given on the cover of the box, and succeeded in reproducing three of them.
After having secured the necessary attention for the mechanical tests, Julia was able to sit down before a box of anagrams, and pick out any of several letters?A, B, C, I, O, R?at call, and to spell and write with the letters the words, it, is, cat, rat. She also learned to count to twelve easily, to count backward from five to one, and to give the number combinations up to five easily, counting out the results if she failed to remember. Her teacher co-operated in teaching her to hold her attention on one thing until it was done, and reported a marked improvement in her behavior both in the circle games and in the table work which she gave the children. There seems no reason to doubt that Julia is able now to continue her reading with some interest to herself and to profit very well by first grade work next year.
Anna?Gave an excellent formboard performance. Her cylinder performance was good for her years. Her memory span was six digits the second day, while the first day she said five with two repetitions for six. She did the horse and colt picture puzzle with no difficulty the first day, but did not succeed on Healy B. Anna is six years, five months old. She is probably normal for height and weight. She has enlarged tonsils and teeth which require attention. She has lost her milk teeth incisors. She is always tired, with deep lines under her eyes, and a wearied expression on her face. Many times she seemed too tired to work, and was left pretty much to her own devices. Her mother runs a house of prostitution most of the time. Just now the Deaconness Mission is trying to reach her, and there is nobody in her house at present other than the family. She drinks a great deal, and it is thought gives Anna liquor. The father is a fairly good man. Anna is the only child. Bedtime hours are unknown to her, and movies and constant excitement seem to be the reason for her fatigue. Anna easily succeeded in doing the Knox tests, the cut-up picture tests, and was the first child to put together the larger picture puzzles. She learned to count to ten the first day. She was the only child in a group of six who had attention sufficient to really learn letters and words in a group. She was given a primer and permitted to read a few sentences every day. In the three weeks, she completed twelve pages of the primer, and could easily have done more, but little effort was made to teach her. She learned to count from five to one and the number combinations from one to five in one lesson. She did the various combinations with the color cubes with ease, but refused to try to make a design with sixteen blocks when the others did, and contented herself with aimless play which was not interrupted. From a mental standpoint there is no reason to suppose that Anna cannot do first grade work well when she enters school next fall. From the physical standpoint there is reason to doubt her ability to stand a long day in school unless her health is built up between now and then. Because of the peculiar situation in the home, the teachers at the kindergarten have not urged the parents to change their treatment of Anna, as they fear the slightest criticism will drive the family from the mission and thus leave Anna in a worse situation.
Rosie?With the exception of a confusion between blocks Nos. 7 and 11, Rosie completed the formboard successfully. She was very slow in doing it. Her cylinder performance was good. Her memory span the first day was three, but the second day she got four. The first day, Rosie seemed utterly unable to give four digits, but alone the second day, she did. This was due apparently to her generally slow thinking, for the first day there was a group around the experimenter. She learned to distinguish her right hand from her left. She was not sure about it the second day, but later did not confuse them.
Rosie speaks Polish in the home. Her home is immaculate, and Rosie is the cleanest and best-dressed child in the kindergarten. She has excellent physical care at home, for she is in the pink of condition, even her teeth and throat are well cared for. When most of the other children were suffering from colds, Rosie had none, and pediculosis was unknown to her, although treatment had been given the other children for this trouble. The kindergarten teacher says that Rosie has not yet learned ordinary English words, although she entered the kindergarten last September. She moves her mouth when the other children sing, and also when they say grace before drinking their milk, but does not say a word that the others are saying.
Rosie was tried very early with A, B and C, and although she had drill every day with blocks, printed letters, the black-board or other devices, she did not learn the letters so that she was sure of them during the three-week period. On the contrary, she learned the word Fannie, and did remember that so that she could point to it in a book. She was always interested, especially in books, and would look at books by the hour if permitted. There was no distractibility of attention, just a general slowness both in movement and in mental processes, so that the other children all were able to do about twice as much as Rosie in the same amount of time. The third day Rosie did Healy A and B and the horse and colt puzzle. In succeeding days she mastered the Knox puzzles, and the simpler picture puzzles? but was never able to get the larger ones. She worked with the color cubes faithfully, but was never sure of either the square in the square, or the chevron, and did not even try to do more difficult ones. She patiently sorted letters, but was never sure of the names and without the help of a neighbor was never sure of five sticks or other objects, although all right on four. She counted to five, but did not succeed in getting to ten. She did not know the number combinations, but could pick out her little sums up to four with some objects, and then give the correct results. Her persistency of attention was wonderful, and worked long and painstakingly at her tasks. If given time, she eventually conquers, but with the ordinary child of her group she is no competitor for she requires nearly twice as long for a single task as does any other child working with her. To expect this child to enter first grade and get along with her work at the same pace as the other children is to expect more than she has any chance of doing. She will try her best, but speed is not there. Her poor language training is a decided handicap, but that too is a question of her own mental quickness, for other children as young as she and in kindergarten for the same period of time have learned far more English than has she, and their language handicap was no greater than hers, and their national aptitude the same as they too are Polish. In short, Rosie is a nice-looking, Polish child, handicapped by lack of English, and of a mental equipment not sufficiently quick to enable her to perform the tasks of the ordinary child with his ease and rapidity.
Florence?Gave a good performance with the formboard, the only hesitation being on the eleventh block. Her memory span was four, with five on five repetitions. She failed the first day with the picture puzzle of the horses heads.
Florence was five two months ago. The home is maintained by the mother and three older children, the father having deserted when Florence was a baby. The mother means well, and has done very well to keep her family together. The home is not clean?Florence had pediculosis two weeks ago?but the family is a hard-working one. Florence is in good physical condition, except for badly decayed teeth. Her throat is in good condition and she appears to have plenty of good food, and to get to bed at reasonable hours at night. She is not permitted to attend the movies as much as are some of the others. She is badly disciplined at home, as she is the youngest, and the pet of the family. She sulks if she does not get her own way, and is frequently in disgrace at the kindergarten.
Florence was a bit slow with the Healy and Knox puzzles. She tried the Healy A and B and the Knox moron and imbecile tests several times each before conquering them. She liked to work with them however, and persisted in her efforts, frequently going off by herself to work. There was no evidence of an easily distracted attention, on the contrary, it was vei^ persistent and the analytic concentration was also good. She was just a little slow at getting the material worked out, but she always wanted to do it by herself. She counted to fifteen and easily learned to count backward from five to one and to form combinations up to four. She showed no interest in this sort of thing, and had to be punished in order to get a response from her. When the puzzles were given her, she worked willingly, but any attempt at teaching which required direct answers, she utterly refused to give without pressure. She was among the first to put together the more complex picture puzzles, and showed herself capable of completing any of them in a reasonable time. She learned to tell her right hand from her left, but failed to respond to any sort of work with the letters. She was willing to sort them, but never inquired their names, as did the others. There was no response to a stimulus toward reading during the three-weeks period. As the child seemed able to conquer worlds of her own, it is likely that further work with difficult forms will bring her to the point where she will desire to read. The stimulus for reading is sadly lacking with all of these children as the home does not offer anything in the way of training for the children, and it is only recently that stories have been introduced to them in the kindergarten, and they fail to capture the interest of this child.
Frank?Gave an excellent performance with the formboard and the cylinders. His memory span was four, five on two repetitions. He could not count at all the first day, but readily learned to count from five to one and from one to five. He had no difficulty in solving five picture puzzles of from three to six pieces each the first day, and learned two words.
Frank is five years ten months old. He is a tall, well-nourished child showing unusual nervousness and poor attention the first day at the kindergarten. Unless a task was very short, he was reaching for something else to do before he had completed the first task, and he was in and out of his chair half a dozen times in five minutes, lying on his stomach on a table, and racing to the toilet if he could think of nothing else to do. It was impossible to hold his attention long enough to really get anything from him the first day or two, although his teacher made every effort to keep him busy. He readily learned, but to keep him busy with a group required the utmost effort because of his constant movement and talk. It seemed that nothing could be done with him unless this was conquered, so he was fed with a constant stream of puzzles, and required to finish each one before another was forthcoming. By the second week he was interested, and after that there was no further trouble. He did the hardest things easify, and with the co-operation of his teacher, he had been required to stop his constant call for new stimuli. There was little question that the whole difficulty with Frank was one due entirely to the kindergarten itself, which offered too little mental content to keep an active child properly busy. His teacher early marked his improvement. The second week was entirely occupied in teaching Frank to control himself by furnishing him something to do so that he could do so. He completed every puzzle during this period and learned to match dominoes also.
The third week, Frank learned words enough to complete three pages in a primer and five or six letters of the alphabet. He was eager for this sort of thing, and worked hard at it. He learned right and left, and continued to count, so that he had an ability to count to twelve and probably much farther. He easily learned the combinations to six, and there seems to be no doubt of his further ability along this line. Frank was also handicapped by the fact that his parents speak Italian in the home, although they are able to speak English. The home is good, the teacher reporting it the most “normal” home of any of her children. Frank is in excellent physical condition, and there is no reason to doubt that he will do well in school if he has half a chance.
John X.?John did the formboard successfully without help, but showed considerable confusion with Nos. 5, 7 and 11. He succeeded with the cylinders. His memory span was four, with five on seven repetitions. His attendance was extremely irregular, so that he did not get as systematic a series of material as did some of the others.
John is seven years ten months old. His father has been dead two years, and the home has been in a wretched state at least since that time. The mother tells wild stories of events which happen to her, but the kindergarten teacher does not know whether they are true or not. John often tells of disgusting scenes and details of the family life around him, and the teacher feels that he must see some of it at least. John has the flat nose and poor teeth which often appear with inherited syphilis, and the kindergarten teacher says that she is sure that that is one thing that is the matter with John. He is not well and often misses time at school because of illness. He is no larger at seven years than is Frank at five years. During the time of John’s attendance, he did the Knox and Healy puzzles. He tried the smaller picture puzzles and succeeded, but did not succeed with any of the larger puzzles. He learned five or six of the remaining letters of the alphabet which he did not know, and he learned to count backward from five to one (he could already count at least to twenty) and to give the arithmetical combinations to six. John easily followed the series given the class in the color cubes.
John has shown some interest in letters and numbers before this, and while somewhat dull and slow, is as ready as he ever will be for his first-grade work. His whole environment and training has been such that he is not likely to make a very brilliant student, for there is no background to make his school life a very emphatic part of his life.
Paul?Was successful with the formboard, slight confusion with 1 and 9. His cylinder performance was good. The memory span was five with six on five repetitions. He succeeded easily with the Healy puzzles and with the smaller picture puzzles.
Paul is six years one month old. His parents speak Polish in the home. The home is the poorest kind imaginable, dirty and squalid. The boy is beaten unmercifully by both parents, who in turn fight each other to such an extent that the neighbors consider the matter scandalous, and this in a neighborhood where such things are not uncommon. The parents do not work often enough to keep the home above destitution. Paul’s health is poor, his throat and nose need attention, his teeth are decayed, his body is thin, and his head unusually large and irregularly formed. He attends the kindergarten only about two-thirds of the time because of poor health. Paul was able to do all of the Healy and Knox tests. He had no difficulty with the smaller picture puzzles, but could not put any of the large puzzles together. He was able to put the square within a square, and the chevron together from the color cubes, but failed to make the more difficult designs. He liked to play with the material with which he was already familiar, and enjoyed looking at pictures in primers, an amusement not much in vogue among the others. He was absent the last week and did not have an opportunity to try to learn his letters. He did, however, learn to count to ten. His attention was easily distracted, and he was so tired a great deal of the time that he was most unpromising to work with. He impressed the experimenter as a boy who was not likely to succeed in the first grade, not so much because of general inability to do the work, but because, of his habits, already formed, of irregular attendance, his frequent illness and his bad habits of inattention, probably more or less adventitious.
Mary?Mary did the formboard successfully, but confused five and four a number of times, placing five in the space reserved for four. She succeeded with the four-piece fort puzzle, but required twenty minutes to get it done.
Mary is a Jewish child. Her parents speak Yiddish in the home. They have a comfortable home, with plenty of good food and clothing. The house is clean, and Mary was always clean and wellcared for. She was five years five months old. Teeth and throat in Mary’s case were negative. There was no distractability of attention in her case. She worked at one thing very persistently, oftentimes occupying her full time for forty-five minutes with one thing. Her distribution of attention was poor, and was the contributing element to her lack of ability to do puzzles and formboards. Mary’s memory span was four, with five on two repetitions. She succeeded in learning in two weeks to do the Knox series of formboards, but it required a great deal of effort on her part. For two days she worked with the imbecile test before conquering it, but she never gave up. She was unable to make a square within a square with the color cubes, although she made a solid square and a square with two alternate colors. Even after being shown, Mary did not always succeed with the color cubes, and she never got along well with them. She liked to do the Knox puzzles, and always asked for them after half an hour’s effort on something else. She did not learn to put the animal puzzles together, but was interested in anagrams, and built up words as well as did the others. The next day however, she did not remember what they were. She learned A, B, C, I and 0 and could pick them out from a group of other letters. She counted to ten, and could count out sums, but did not learn the combinations so that she could give them instantly.
Mary is very slow. She seems able to learn, and capable of it, in this respect differing from Rosie. She is not as slow as Rosie either, for Rosie actually moved slowly, while Mary does not. Mary has a very narrow attention. With this lack of distribution, Mary works on small things without getting a view of the whole. That was her trouble with the puzzles. It is doubtful whether Mary would do good work in a first grade because of this slowness. The children there have a limited time in which to do things, Mary requires a great deal more time than does the ordinary child in which to do things. She will not have this time given her in the first grade. John Y.?John succeeded with the formboard, his only confusion being with No. 9. The performance was qualitatively very good. He had a memory span of four, with five on two repetitions. He could not count, but was taught to count to five. He placed the easier picture puzzles without difficulty.
John is five years three months old. His home is a wretched one, dirty and squalid. The parents are shiftless, and there are always excess men around the place whom the mother seems to entertain in her free moments. The child is abused and beaten. Fighting is common among the grown members of the family. John is fairly well nourished. He has enlarged tonsils and badly decayed teeth, but appears fairly sturdy and solid. The family speak Polish in the home, and the boy does not understand English very well, that is, he knows the common words of command in the kindergarten, but is not able to retell a story.
John shows the same persistency as that of the other Polish children. He works long and hard, and succeeds in getting what he wants if permitted to take time enough. He easily did the Knox puzzles, the Healy A and B, and the smaller and larger picture puzzles. He learned to count to ten, to count backward from five to one, and to count up his arithmetical combinations. He learned the names of half a dozen letters, A, B, C, I, O, S, and of several words, but he showed no interest in learning this sort of material, while he did like to do the puzzles, both of the formboard variety and the pictures. John will be slow with this school work. He likes to take his time in doing things, but he is capable, and has enough mental equipment to do his work. It is doubtful whether he does well in school unless he gets good training this spring, as he is not well equipped in English, and his home is not one which will give him much encouragement, but he is able to do the work.
Herman?Herman placed Nos. 9, 10, 11 and 1 over the wrong spaces in the formboard. The second time he did it correctly without teaching, but watching another child doing it. His memory span was four, five on three repetitions. He did the four-piece picture puzzle without difficulty, but could not do one with five pieces. A second trial with this was successful.
Herman is five years one month old. His people are Jews. Very little is known about them at the kindergarten, except that they are thrifty and try to keep their children well. Herman, for instance, always brings the most and best lunch to school. Herman’s throat is in good condition, but his teeth are decayed to just forms, the incisors forming little more than pegs in his mouth. Herman is behind the other children in his development. He is smaller than are the others, and is quieter and more babyish in his attitude toward things. He does not understand English very well, for his parents speak Yiddish in the home, although they have learned to speak English. Herman is out a good deal, and often does not come to school for a week at a time. He was irregular during the three-week period of teaching, staying out when the weather was good. His performances were surprising. He easily did tests that many of the older children failed to do. He was able to finish the Knox and Healy tests without the slightest difficulty. He was not present when the children were tried out with the color cubes, the larger puzzles, or with words or letters. He was able to count to at least fifteen and to count out sums. This is as far as the instruction went.
Herman is young for his years, but it seems likely that with an added year in which to develop, especially when there is language training, he will be a promising first grade pupil.
Howard?Howard gave a good formboard performance. His memory span was good, five with four repetitions for six. He failed to do the Healy A the first time, but succeeded after seeing another child do it. He did the simple picture puzzles easily. Howard is five years, six months old. His home is poor, not so much because of dirt, for it is fairly clean, but because of the very poor food which he has. Howard’s face is dirtily white, and covered with eczema. The child scratches these sores until they bleed and are most unsightly. He is tired all the time, and when released from a task drops with a sigh of relief into a chair, to remain there until someone insists upon his rising. He learns easily, but will not try to do anything unless someone is right at hand to keep him going. There is no initiative. The first day he could not count, the second day he had learned to count to eight. He did the Knox tests, and some of the simpler picture puzzles. He was then taken ill, and did not appear at school again.
Howard seemed to have mental equipment enough to do firstgrade work. His health is so poor, however, that it does not seem possible for him to do school work successfully unless his physical condition is much improved. He looks as if he might have tuberculosis. He is not likely to live through another year under the present conditions.
Albert?Gave a good performance with the formboard except that the rate of movement was very slow. His memory span was four, five on seven repetitions. He could count to ten forward, not backward. He slowly performed the cylinder test and Healy B. His discrimination and distribution of attention were adequate to his years, but his rate of movement very slow.
Albert is five years, two months old. The parents are hardworking folk who mean well, but who have no ability as producers. The income is always inadequate, the food poor. The parents do not drink and seem to try to provide for the children. Both work. Albert is thin and weak, his face white and old-looking. He misses a great deal of school because of illness, and was unable to attend more than half the time during the three-week period.
Albert was able to do the Healy and Knox puzzles. He learned one and one, two and two and three and one, but his retentiveness of these items was not tried out because of his absence. His attention was easily distracted, partly the result of his training at the kindergarten, and partly as a matter of self-preservation, for it was evident that any amount of work would be beyond his strength. Most of the time he was content to lie with his head on the table, or to quietly look at a book. For the reason just given, it would seem that Albert was not a promising child for first-grade work. As far as his mental equipment was concerned, there was nothing shown that would exclude him from first grade.
Joseph?Gave a good formboard and cylinder performance. His memory span is four, five on two repetitions. He could not count at all the first day, but learned to count from one to five very quickly. He did the simple picture puzzles easily. Joseph is six years one month old. The family speak Polish in the home, and the parents know no English. There is a great deal of drinking in the home, and the reputation of the mother is bad. There are always extra men in the home when the kindergarten teacher has been there, and the stories in the neighborhood confirm the suspicions excited by this fact. There seems to be plenty of food for the boy, and his body is in good condition. His teeth are badly decayed and his tonsils very much enlarged. His tongue is thickly coated with a heavy dark-brown fur. His teacher reports that he is given liquor to drink, and the fur on the tongue suggests this. Some days Joseph showed no inclination to work, spending his time, if permitted, in idle handling of objects near him, or in gazing at some gold fish. Other days he worked steadily, and seemed much interested. He is handicapped in language, for with the exception of the vocabulary which he had learned at the kindergarten, he seemed to have no words at all. It is doubtful whether he can use as many words as he knows as commands. He did not know the songs the children sung, but was able to tell when he was chosen as a part of a game.
Joseph was able to do the Healy and Knox puzzles easily. He progressed through the series of picture puzzles, and was able to do the most complex without difficulty, but often did not wish to try to do the hard things. He never seemed to have “jazz,” and it required effort to get him to try to do things. He was considerably better some days than others. Joseph was successful with the color cubes, doing all the designs but the zigzag, but was slow in taking it up, and required a great deal of encouragement, and much praising before he would attempt it at all. His rate of movement and the time required for his performance was considerably in excess of most of the others, that is, with the exception of the other Polish children, who were about as slow or slower than Joseph.
Joseph was a puzzle to everybody. Some days he did so very well, and other days so poorly. The kindergarten teacher suggested possible drinking as the cause of this, and it seems likely that this was the explanation. Joseph showed no aptitude for learning the letters or words. He responded when asked, but never initiated an answer himself. He learned two words, also to count to twelve. He was able to count out small sums, but not to an extent which would warrant one saying that his interest had been touched. Although six years of age, and a possible candidate for the first grade next September, Joseph is not a promising pupil. He seemed to be equipped with sufficient mental “goods” to do the work, but his language handicap, sufficient in itself to prevent his doing well in school, is further augmented by his home environment to make it unlikely that he will do well in the first grade.
Andrew?Andrew did the formboard well. As he was the last one to try it, he continued to play with it, repeating it several times. Andrew’s people are Polish, and speak Polish in the home. The home is clean and the people are respectable. Andrew is six years, five months old. He is losing his first teeth, and has no teeth at all on the lower left-hand side. His front incisors are missing also. The teeth which remain are badly decayed and can offer very little useful surface for the chewing of food. His tonsils are enlarged so much that they meet across the throat passage when the throat is in repose. His physical condition otherwise seems fairly good. He is wellnourished. His eyes protrude slightly and his facial expression is vacuous. His language attainment is poor, yet he knows some of the kindergarten songs, and the kindergarten teacher reports that he really understands what he is singing about, although Rosie and Joseph do not seem to, as they are unable to explain about the songs. Andrew did very little with the tests, requiring so much time for each that he did not get far. For instance, he spent an entire period on the imbecile test, and the same for the moron. The other children would do four or five in the same time. He did not learn to count or to recognize any letters or words. An assistant tried to teach him, and also gave him the Binet test. The results showed that Andrew had a memory span of three, which was not increased to four on ten repetitions. He is nearly two years retarded on the Binet scale. The failures on this scale were significant. He was unable to copy a square, to repeat four digits or thirteen syllables as is expected in the four-year tests. He failed on the three commissions and the aesthetic comparison in the five-year tests. His attention was very easily distracted, part of which might be laid to training, and part of which undoubtedly was inherent. Attempts to teach were futile. His limited memory span and lack of retentiveness made this impossible, even if the attention had not been so bad.
In this boy’s case, there is no doubt that he will fail to do first grade work. His memory span is too limited to make it possible for him to do good work. If at six and one-half years, he is as slow as he is, there is little hope that he will overcome this defect enough to make him a profitable student. His physical condition ought to be improved through the removal of his tonsils and dental care for his teeth. As it is he is a poor prospect for first grade.
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