A Jovial Insipid Subject

One of the pressures of entering fourth grade is an accelerated vocabulary. Most children find--and happily master--scores of big, new words in their textbooks. But for many inner-city children, whose parents do not use such words, the encounter can be agony. Unable to cope with their books, the kids often give up and quit learning.

In St. Louis last year, School Superintendent William Kottmeyer devised a new method for making new words alluring to 24,000 children, 68% of whom are black. For three grades (fourth through sixth), Kottmeyer isolated several hundred potentially baffling words and used them in his own rewrites of classical myths and fables. Three times a week for eight months, the stories and lessons were broadcast into classrooms via the school system's own FM station. Pupils were pretested and retested each time; cumulative exams were given every three weeks.

Substantial Refutation. The results have recently been released--and they look impressive. IQ scores for Kottmeyer's fourth graders rose an average of 7.2 points; those for fifth and sixth graders went up 3.5 and 6.0 points. Spelling and reading scores were two to four months ahead of the national norms, and overall school performances were above all expectations.

Kottmeyer, who retired in June, is especially proud of student performance vis-a-vis national averages ("for city kids, it's unheard of"), and noted that blacks showed greater advances than their white classmates. As he sees it, the project constitutes "a substantial refutation of the idea that black kids are inferior by their heritage, and therefore nothing can be done for them." Every bit as enthusiastic, many students used their newly acquired words to write glowing thank-you notes to Kottmeyer. Excerpts:

>> "The words were very profitable to me. Once I knew them I felt like an oracle or a brilliant person. You made a logical superintendent."

>> "Now the children in the fifth grade in the schools of St. Louis can cogitate better with your myriads of words. I have no suggestions to your program because it is very apropos. You also must be a very genial man. Ordinarily children don't like these kinds of programs, but this time they are overwhelmed."

>> "Dr. Kottmeyer, you made an insipid subject very jovial."

>> "I appreciate the time you gave to us to learn the words. I absorbed them like a mellow strawberry."

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