Can TV Teach Your Kid to Read?
Cliff Hanger, the long word freak-out, the Smarty-Pants Dance, those mysteriously-floating jewel-toned lips that teach about vowel sounds using jazzy riffs and beautiful harmonies; the list of things to love about PBS children's series Between the Lions goes on and on. The show is fun. But can it really teach kids to read?
According to a new slew of surveys conducted by some very well-known universities... yes. Or at least it can significantly help. Thanks in part to these findings, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) recently announced its commitment to funding seasons seven and eight of the popular television show.
Studies by the University of Kansas, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and others, say Between the Lions gives children a leg up when it comes time to learn to read. In the University of Kansas Study, performed by Dr. Deborah Linebarger, kindergarten students who watched Between the Lions outperformed students who did not at a ratio of 4:1 in reading skills like letter-sound correspondence, phonemic awareness, and concepts of print. In the Harvard study, students who watched Between the Lions, rather than Arthur, had an easier time blending words, even though they'd scored significantly lower than these same students before the study began.
During the two consecutive school years (2004-2005 and 2005-2006) that eleven Tribal Head Start programs in New Mexico implemented the Between the Lions American Indian Head Start Literacy Initiative project in 48 of their classrooms, students showed dramatic improvements in early English literacy skills. For example, before the project children knew, on average approximately six letters. By the end of their participation they knew about nineteen, according to a study by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. The number of children considered at risk for reading failure dropped from 39 percent to 12 percent as measured by the popular screening tool, Get Ready to Read.
Could your kid be next? Would he learn his alphabet and master his phonics if only you switch from Sponge Bob to Between the Lions? Unclear. But at the very least, he'll probably love that Smarty-Pants dance.
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Comments from readers
As to the article, I would like to also suggest that parents turn on the closed captioning. Running the words along the bottom of the screen helps as well and it's so easy to do. I believe in the 70's they did a study and showed children that had a parent in the household that was hearing impaired and had that black box on their TV's for closed captioned scored remarkably higher in reading. Today that black box is built into pretty much all TV's. So, why not use it?
Suryakant Narsune
If you want your child`s eyes to be glued to the TV screen evrey day fine go ahead.I would rather just open a big fat textbook in front of them and tell them to read, if they really know how.
people you are missing the point going outside or staying inside does not teach your child life skills. parents have to be involved for these things. i am very much there when my child is watching tv to reinforce what is being taught. this is very important for a child that is young and learning parent involvement. he does not watch tv 24/7 you know what he loves to learn.
Ann-Marie (#20) has it right!