The High-tech Three-year-olds

 

If you are still nervous in front of a video display terminal, consider this: At West Virginia University, in Morgantown, there is a program to teach three-year-olds computer literacy.

"They love it," says Bobbie Gibson Warash assistant professor of child de velopment and director of the nursery school." Kids are natural on [a computer]. A lot of adults are afraid to push the wrong keys. Kids aren't."

The 26 three- and four-year-olds at the school using an Apple II+ draw pictures incorporating various shapes that they can produce by pressing certain keys.

Warash sees the computer as a useful tool for teaching children how to read and write. The rest of us can ponder the fact that soon some five-year-olds may know more about computers than we do.