9 Year Old Girl Develops Apps for Apple

 

 

Pre discussion questions

Would you like to make apps for smartphones?

What ability do you think you need to make smartphone apps?

 

Not so many years ago, Apple didn’t allow anyone under 18 to attend its annual worldwide developer conference.

Brilliant under-age programmers used to devise ways to sneak in.

Today, Apple has a scholarship program that invites young programmers to apply for a scholarship to the show.

This year, 350 scholarship winners are attending the WWDC show including about 120 kids under 18, Apple says.

One of these exceptional young people is 9 year-old Australian girl: Anvitha Vijay.

Vijay coded her first app at age 7, self-teaching herself by watching how-to-code videos on YouTube and elsewhere on the web

 

Vijay has created a few apps. She even has one available on the App store, called Smartkins, This is an app for kids The app has over 100 different animal names and sounds The app lets kids even record their own thoughts and sounds.

Vijay has impressed Apple so much, that she got to meet CEO Tim Cook.

Cook always meets the teen developers who come to the show. But what was different is that Cook called Vijay out in the audience.

In the first few minutes of the show, he pointed her out in the audience. He said, “I met her and she is going to make one heck of a developer.”

 

 

 

 

Try to guess the meaning of the words in bold and match them with their closest meaning from the choices in the right. Some of the answers are very close and have similar meaning. The meaning of these words is how they are used in the reading. Some of these words have different meanings in the dictionary depending on how they are used.

 The answers are below the table.

 

 

 

Brilliant	A	1	To move very carefully and secretly
devise	B	2	To name a person, to get someone’s attention
Sneak	C	3	Very intelligent, like a genius
exceptional	D	4	To show, “look at that”, make someone see
Impressed	E	5	Impressive, a thing that is excellent
Called out	F	6	More than excellent, very rare or unusual
Point out	G	7	To do something very well so that others notice or see, very noticeable
One heck of	H	8	To think  of a way to do something, a plan

 

A=3, B=8, C=1, D=6, E=7, F=2, G=4, H=5

Some example sentences using the new words or phrases from the meaning of how they are used in the reading to help you understand better.

 

1.      He was a brilliant man; he invented many things in his lifetime.

2.      We need to devise a way to pay for this expensive plan.

3.      The cat sneaked around at night stealing trash.

4.      She was exceptional at everything she tried; for example in study, sports and even music. She was always the best at each one.

5.      My boss was impressed with the hard work that I did.

6.      Mr Lee called out my friend from the 1000 students as the one who had improved the most last year.

7.      The tour guide pointed out the places we needed to visit in the city.

8.      It was one heck of a beautiful day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some questions using the new words/phrases. Try to use the words/phrases in your answer.

 

1.      Describe someone you know that is brilliant at something.

2.      How do you think that under aged app developers devised ways to get into the Apple event?

3.      Why would some people in the story try to sneak into the event? Have you ever tried to sneak into class because you were late?

4.      If you could be exceptional at one thing, what would you like to be exceptional at?

5.      What do you find impressive about the girl in today’s story? If you go to a job interview, how do you impress?

6.      How do you think Anvitha felt when she was called out?

7.      What things would you point out to a visitor to your city?

8.      Describe one heck of a fun time you had.