ABSTRACT
Such a child lives in a home that has time to spare, or at any rate gives time to its children, believing them very important, and has allowed him to spend hours, when he is only one, taking books out of shelves and putting them back, taking biscuit tins out of cupboards and putting them back, snuggling under chairs or tables – all those natural explorations that among so many other matters spontaneously discover size and shape (which will help him later to recognise letters and words) not academically but with his own physical identity. Soon, having explored first of his own volition, naturally growing, he will be playing games given him that deliberately build on this awareness and interest – posting boxes, stacking-beakers, jigsaws, or beakers and saucepans bought for adult use but freely lent to the child; for everything he does is watched with interest.
