'Sesame Street' Designer Says T.V. Can Teach Kids Quickly

A Harvard Education professor who chairs the group which produced the award-winning children's program "Sesame Street" said last night that his program has shown that young children can learn at a far greater speed from television than psychologists had previously thought.

In a speech at the Unitarian Church in the Square, Gerald S. Lesser, Bigelow Professor of Education and Development, said that one of the goals of "Sesame Street" was to teach pre-school children cognitive skills such as counting and distinguishing letters of the alphabet.

The program was designed to present educational material in an entertaining fashion, so that the child's parents and older siblings would watch the show together, Lesser said.

Lesser said that the show also tried to portray integrated situations in which children played happily. "We wanted to show that people can treat each other with kindness in an integrated neighborhood," he said.

In preparing new programs, Lesser said that the Children's Television Workshop, which he heads, watches children as they view the past episodes of "Sesame Street." By doing this, he said that the Workshop has discovered such things as the fact that children enjoy watching adults making mistakes when the child knows the answer.

Lesser said that "Sesame Street" enjoys enormous popularity among ghetto children. He cited survey estimates which showed that about 60 per cent of inner city children of three, four or five years of age watch the program regularly.

In the future, "Sesame Street" will concentrate more on "social-emotional development," Lesser said.