What is Miss Kinnian teaching Charlie?

As the story opens, Miss Kinnian is teaching Charlie spelling and reading at a night school. He writes in his journal in response to a question about how he found the class that:

sumbody told me where I shud go to lern to read and spell good.

We learn that Charlie is very determined to go to the night school because he wants to learn and become smart. This is also why he is willing to submit to the operation that will boost his brain power, even though he is warned it will probably only be temporary. It's also clear that he doesn't fully understand the implications of what he is getting himself into.
We learn as well that Miss Kinnian thinks Charlie is the person in her class who would be best for the operation and that she thinks he deserves it most of all.