Friday, March 22, 2013

Early Literacy in Television

When it comes to television programs fostering and supporting new and developing leaders, PBS clearly has the edge. During my research, four out of the five programs which appear to have the strongest early literacy and language components came from PBS—Between the Lions, Word World, Super WHY!, and Sesame Street. The remaining program I researched and evaluated, Pinky Dinky Doo, had far less educational intentionality than these four programs, although it is produced and created by Sesame Workshop- the powerhouse behind many PBS programs, most notably Sesame Street.

Between the Lions - PBS

Between the Lions is “an Emmy Award-winning, PBS children's television show that focuses on phonics and early reading skills in an entertaining format featuring puppetry, animation, live action, and plenty of music. Lion puppet parents Theo and Cleo, with some help from their children Lionel and Leona, run the local library for human and animal patrons alike, vowing always to be helpful, designated readers who never eat their customers.”[i] Developed by “several members of the original creative team of Sesame Street,” [ii]  Between the Lions is designed to “help kids ages 3 to 7 learn to read. Unique among the hundreds of programs aimed at children, this puppet, animated, and live-action show is based on a detailed and rigorous literacy curriculum.”[iii] It was developed in “extensive and ongoing consultation with reading professionals. The result is a lively, educational blend of phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and other teaching methods for preschool, kindergarten, and first grade students. Several independent, scientifically-based reading research studies have shown that Between the Lions has a significant impact in increasing children's literacy.”[iv] Between the Lions has been “the subject of several independent, scientifically-based reading research studies assessing the effectiveness of the series in achieving its literacy goals. These studies have all shown that Between the Lions has a significant impact on increasing children's literacy”: University of Kansas Study, 2000; Mississippi State University Study, 2001-2002; Harvard University Study, 2001-2002; University of Pennsylvania Study, 2004-2005; University of Mississippi Study, 2005-2006; Children NOW Study, 2008; and Mississippi Literacy Initiative Evaluation, 2009.[v]

Lion parents “Theo and Cleo, with some help from their children Lionel and Leona, run the local library for human and animal patrons alike, vowing always to be helpful, designated readers who never eat their customers. Each of season one's 30 episodes begins with the Lion family reading a story--anything from classic Greek myths, to Old West stories and tongue twisters--with animated pages that spring to life and spark the imagination of young reader Lionel and his pre-school-age sister Leona.”[vi] Each 30-minute show revolves around the cast of characters in the library as they discover the power and pleasure connected to reading and storytelling. The show introduces early literacy elements like the sounds letters make and rhyming as well as fluency, sight words and early phonics.[vii] In each episode, a vowel sound group (like the short "a" in the sound group "ack") is emphasized. Words containing the sound group (e.g., "back," "sack," and "crack") flash briefly on the screen, while letters are bumped to form new words as they are spoken.[viii]

Access & Rating: While broadcast on PBS, not available on Amazon Streaming Video, Hulu, or Netflix. VHS and DVD format available. Amazon Rating: 4.8 stars out of 5 (VHS Box Set).

WordWorld - PBS

Emmy Award-winning and Parent’s Choice Award-winning children's series WordWorld stars Duck and his WordFriends, “has been demonstrated by a US Department of Education funded study to improve reading skills. WordFriends embark on adventures where the only way to save the day is to 'build a word'. When a word is built correctly, it morphs into the thing it represents and comes alive!”[ix]  Word building “reinforces the pre-reading concept that letters (and their sounds) make words, and that words have real meaning…and power. The series also introduces literacy concepts that preschoolers will encounter as they become readers, such as sounding out letters and rhyming. The WordFriends go on comic adventures and face challenges that can only be resolved with the right word. That word is built letter by letter, sound by sound, during the funky “Build a Word” song at the end of every episode. Once the word is built, it “morphs”–comes alive–into the thing it is!”[x]

WordWorld is “grounded in scientifically based reading research and incorporates the recommendations of the landmark report Teaching Children to Read by the National Reading Panel (2000). Additionally, as recommended by researchers, WordWorld immerses children in a language-rich environment. Literacy experts and advisors in the fields of child development, psychology and education are an integral part of the WordWorld team and review content throughout the development process. WordWorld is also continually informed by formative research with preschool children, teachers and parents, conducted by the Michael Cohen Group. Results from these ongoing studies guide the development and production of WordWorld. The curriculum of WordWorld is designed to introduce, support and foster emergent literacy skills in children ages three to five. The curriculum draws from four skill sets critical for young children’s emergent literacy: print awareness, phonological sensitivity and letter knowledge, comprehension (including vocabulary development) and socio-emotional skills.”[xi] Series-based research on WordWorld has “proven a significant impact in children’s literacy skill development by watching this program”.[xii]

Access & Rating: In addition to being broadcast on PBS, available on Amazon Streaming Video and Hulu; not available on Netflix. VHS and DVD format also available. Amazon Rating: 5 stars out of 5 (Season 1). Hulu Rating: 3 starts out of 5 (series).

Super WHY! - PBS

Super WHY! “takes an innovative approach to learning by promoting reading as a powerful, meaningful experience for children aged 3 to 6 years old. SUPER WHY promotes the key skills recommended by the National Reading Panel, including: Emerging Literacy Concepts; Phonemic Awareness; The Alphabet Code; Fluency; Text Comprehension; Spelling; Written Expression/Handwriting and Motivating Children to Read.”[xiii][xiv]

Each episode features “a reading adventure in Storybrook Village, a magical 3-D world hidden behind the bookshelves in a children's library… Each episode starts with a preschool relatable problem. In every episode, one of the friends encounters a problem with another Storybrook Village character (For instance, Jill from the Jack and Jill rhyme is not being nice). As in real life, the problems require preschool social skills to resolve. And that's when SUPER WHY gets super-powered! Whyatt calls his fairy tale friends to their secret clubhouse, named "The Book Club," where they transform themselves from mere mortals into literacy-powered super heroes: Alpha Pig with "Alphabet Power," Wonder Red with "Word Power," Princess Presto with "Spelling Power," Super Why with the "Power to Read," and your child-Super You, with the "Power to Help." Using their super powers, these Super Readers literally fly inside books. "Inside" each book the Super Readers lead the viewer on an engaging reading adventure. They talk to fictional characters from the story, play reading games and activities to overcome obstacles, search for Super Letters, and practice such key skills as letter identification, word decoding, spelling, vocabulary and comprehension… What's unique about this approach is that while kids are learning and practicing the ABC's of reading, they're also thinking about what they're reading, applying reasoning skills to see the story in a real-life context and experiencing books in a powerful new way.”[xv]

According to a review of Super WHY!, “Not only does this inviting animated series encourage preschoolers to expand their early literacy skills through interactive reading, word games, and spelling challenges, it also draws comparisons between the lessons in classic tales like The Three Little Pigs and real-world troubles that kids will easily relate to. The stories' morals also remind youngsters that many problems can be resolved by communication and compassion.”[xvi]

Two studies on Super WHY! “prove that viewing Super WHY! can indeed play a major role in the acquisition of early literacy abilities that lead to the development of reading success… Over time, kids who watched Super WHY! showed significant gains on alphabet knowledge, phonological and phonemic awareness, symbolic and linguistic awareness, and comprehension. Watching Super WHY! dramatically improved preschoolers’ letter and sound naming speeds, skills that are directly linked to conventional reading achievement.”[xvii]

Access & Rating: In addition to being broadcast on PBS, available on Amazon Streaming Video, Hulu, and Netflix. Available in DVD format; VHS not available. Amazon Rating: 4.7 stars out of 5 (Streaming Seasons). Hulu Rating: 3 starts out of 5 (series).


Sesame Street - PBS

Sesame Street’s first listed objective is to “Develop early language and literacy skills such as letter knowledge, vocabulary, and reading and writing fundamentals. Since its debut in 1969, Sesame Street has been grounded on a comprehensive whole-child curriculum that supports preschoolers' cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development. [xviii]  Sesame Street was
“designed to help children transition from home to school by introducing the alphabet and numbers through interesting characters, songs and stories. One of the many elements of Sesame Street's success is their commitment to keeping the shows developmentally appropriate based on the most recent research, and also sensitive to cultural and social differences.”[xix]

As of 2009, Sesame Street has earned 122 Emmy wins.[xx] The curriculum is created by in-house child psychologists, educators, and educational advisors, incorporating the latest research in child development and innovative approaches in early childhood education. While the series is designed to address all areas of children's learning and development, the primary curricular focus changes every one or two seasons in order to meet preschoolers' current critical needs.”[xxi] Each episode “is stocked with reasoning games, sounding out letters and words, counting, pattern recognition and other important early literacy and math skills appropriate for young children.”[xxii] The show capitalizes on kids' natural love of learning and celebrates diversity by exploring different cultures and incorporating both Muppet and flesh-and-blood characters of all ages, colors, races, and physical abilities.[xxiii]

Children who watch the show as two-year-olds gain an advantage in math, vocabulary, and other school readiness skills by the time they are five. [xxiv]

Access & Rating: In addition to being broadcast on PBS, available on Netflix and on Amazon Streaming Video; not available on Hulu. VHS and DVD format also available in large supply. Netflix Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5 (Recent Seasons); 3.9 stars out of 5 (Classic Episodes).

Pinky Dinky Doo – Nick Jr. and Univision

Pinky Dinky Doo loves to “make up stories -- outrageous, bizarre, silly stories. Every episode features a story, made up by Pinky for her brother Tyler and Mr. Guinea Pig, with a strong beginning, middle, and end that are full of meaty metaphors, silly similes, and sometimes even a great take-home message.”[xxv] “From each episode's presentation of a new word -- which either Pinky or Tyler defines and then precedes with a trumpet fanfare each time it's used -- to the involvement of the adorable Mr. Guinea Pig in each story, Pinky Dinky Doo is enlightening as well as silly, funny, and entertaining.”[xxvi]

Pinky Dinky Doo promotes reading and imaginative storytelling by encouraging children to participate in funny and fantastic stories, games, and songs that support critical early literacy skills. The series has four primary goals: celebrating the power of inventing and sharing stories, through the showcasing of the storytelling process, demonstrating to children that stories come from ideas in people's heads; introducing basic narrative elements, including characters, dialogue, main ideas, sequence of events, details; providing opportunities to use effective listening comprehension strategies; and expanding vocabulary through stories, by focusing on the meaning of words and concepts within the context of the story and using rhyme, rhythm, and alliteration.[xxvii]

Access & Rating: Although no longer broadcasting new episodes, available on Netflix and on Amazon Streaming Video; not available on Hulu. Available in DVD format; VHS not available. Netflix Rating: 3.3 stars out of 5 (Series); Amazon Rating: 4.6 stars out of 5 (Streaming Videos).

 

This area- television programs promoting early literacy- was both easier and harder than other formats. Easier in the sense that there was significantly more literature on the programs themselves, but more difficult in that there are so many episodes it is difficult to say “This is exactly what the program entails” short of the information provided by the production company.

As the parent of two small children, out of these five programs, the two programs they ask to watch are WordWorld and SuperWHY!, both of which have supporting research proving their “worth” to the support of early literacy.

The other challenging element was the “recommended audience” listed online. Often times the websites would list age range older than what I was expecting- for example, seeing Sesame Street recommended up to age seven. While the content may be relevant up to that age group, I have hard time seeing a typical seven year old actively seeking out Sesame Street, although they may enjoy it. Common Sense Media made the most of this age discrepancy by listing the intended audience age range, what parents say is the appropriate age, and what children actually demonstrate. In most cases- except for Between the Lions, all of the other programs skewed younger. Conversely, Between the Lions, at least when it came to the parents’ opinions, skewed older than the intended audience.

As a parent of young children who are familiar with and use streaming content, I felt it important that digital access also be noted, as well as ratings on those digital content providers.



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Friday, March 8, 2013

Early Learning & Literacy Tools


READY! FOR KINDERGARTEN: http://www.readyforkindergarten.org/

 “READY! for Kindergarten™ classes encourage parents to talk, sing, read and play with their child in simple ways that foster essential pre-literacy, pre-math and social-emotional skills. Age-appropriate activities are designed to begin at birth and continue through age five. The curriculum is based on current research and replicates what parents and educators of successful students have done for years.”

 “Developed in 2002 by the Children's Reading Foundation and the Kennewick (WA) School District, READY! for Kindergarten offers age-appropriate trainings, targets and tools for parents and caregivers of children birth to five years that ensure children success in school.” Ready! For Kindergarten covers three categories:  Language and Literacy; Math and Reasoning; Social and Emotional, and focuses on 26 measurable skills within these three categories. Within the Language and Literacy category, there are 12 targets. These targets are: Seeing Clearly; Naming Letter Shapes; Matching Letter Shapes; Recognizing Sight Words; Singing, Chanting, Rhyming; Saying Letter Sounds; Saying Sounds in Words; Comprehending Books; Knowing Print Concepts; Hearing Spoken Words; Developing Verbal Skills; Printing First Name

Within the Language and Literacy targets, there different measurable expectations for each age group: birth-1, 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, and 4-5. For example, in Saying Sounds in Words, “I can say the last word in familiar rhymes, with assistance,” (Ages 1-2) to “I repeat the beginning sound of words. I clap or jump the syllables in familiar words, with assistance. I make up nonsense rhymes,” (Ages 3-4).

GET READY TO READ: http://www.getreadytoread.org/

A service of the National Center for Learning Disabilities, “Get Ready to Read! is designed to support educators, parents, and young children in the development of early literacy skills in the years before kindergarten.” The resources and information provided “promote skill-building, communication between adults, and ways to address concerns.”

Under Skill Building Activities, Get Ready provides 36 activity cards, free and full-text. Get the activity cards here. Within the 26 activities are three different skill levels- beginning, making progress, and ready to read. Parents should start at the level most equivalent to their child’s skills and knowledge. Get Ready also provides a screening tool, although they do not provide it free of charge.

Under Early Learning & Childhood basics, Get Ready provides parents a crash course in early learning and early literacy, featuring articles, videos discussing the important of building skills- and how to build these skills with children, and strategies and resources for parents to help build readers.  

ZERO TO THREE: http://www.zerotothree.org/

Zero to Three is provided by the National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families. “The ZERO TO THREE Policy Center is a nonpartisan, research-based resource for federal and state policymakers and advocates on the unique developmental needs of infants and toddlers. The Policy Center brings to bear ZERO TO THREE’s more than 30 years of research-based expertise on infant and toddler development to ensure that public policies reflect best practices and current research in support of our nation’s very young children.”

In their School Readiness Section, they group their age categories into 0-12 months, 12-24 months, and 24-36 months. Under school readiness, they focus on four areas: language and literacy, thinking skills, self-control, and self-confidence. Each section focus on what parents and caregivers can do to support the growth and development of specific skills; provides specific, yet easy to do parent-child activities, and has some frequently asked questions for each area of emphasis.

In their Early Literacy and Language Tips and Tools, they have a host of articles including reviewing current research, how parents can help build basic early literacy skills, and the importance of early interaction with children in building these skills. The Tips and Tools can be found here.

CENTER FOR EARLY LEARNING LITERACY: http://www.earlyliteracylearning.org

The Center for Early Literacy Learning (CELL) has “resources for early childhood intervention practitioners, parents, and other caregivers of children, birth to five years of age, with identified disabilities, developmental delays, and those at-risk for poor outcomes.”

CELL features three different practice guides- for parents, for teachers, and another with adaptations for children with disabilities. Each of these practice guides have resources divided into three age groups—infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. All of these practice guides are available, free of charge, in full-text format.

Ten different videos, directed towards both parents and teachers, show both groups how to use the resources and knowledge on the site. These videos range from 5 minutes to 17 minutes, with the longest video on how to have interactive/dialogic reading with 4 and 5 year olds. See the videos here.

The site also features Practice Guides for Parents in Spanish- however, this is buried in English-text and menus, and even the themes of each guide, as well as the age groups, are in English, not Spanish.

King County Library System’s Ready to Read was the most overt in listing appropriate books to foster early literacy skills.

READY TO READ: http://www.kcls.org/parents/kidsandreading/readytoread/index.cfm

“The READ TO ME Program encourages parents to read books to their babies. Through workshops parents experience the pleasures in picture books for children and learn to make the reading fun for everyone. These video clips were produced by the READ TO ME Program. KCLS Children's Librarians can provide free Early Literacy presentations for groups of parents, caregivers and early child professionals. The length of the presentation can be tailored to fit your needs and STARS-approved education credit can be provided.”

In Ready to Read’s Guide, fifteen different picture books are featured, and with each of them, prepares the parent for reading the book with their child, coaches the parent through dialogic reading by giving them questions to posse, gives them games which play off the language in the book, gives the parents ideas of how to play with the child based on ideas in the book, and lists age appropriate books about similar topics or subjects.  See the guide here.

The site also includes age-specific booklists, information on reading aloud to children, coaching on how to select books for children, some easy songs and fingerplays to do with children, and specific books which are good for fingerplays with children.

COMPARISONS

In reviewing Ready! for Kindergarten, Get Ready to Read, Zero to Three, Center for Early Learning Literacy, and King County’s Ready to Read program, there were differences, advantages, and disadvantages to each resource. All of these resources clearly place research-based practices at the heart of their programs—no resource and accompanying tools had an advantage in this respect.

Zero to Thirty features videos of parents and children learning the described skills- a unique attribute. See videos here. Zero to Thirty also featured a number of resources, including videos, in Spanish. However, the main site was in English, and contained Spanish-language resources. The likelihood of primary Spanish-speakers wading through the English content seems remote.

CELL features audio and visual podcasts of their Parent Practice guides. As the resource is designed with those with disabilities in mind, it makes sense to provide accessible formats for parents and educators as well! See and hear the CELLcasts here. The practice guides for parents and practitioners are both incredibly text-heavy. Having an alternative format, in this case audio and visual formats, makes trudging through the content somewhat less daunting.

King County’s Read to Me site is incredibly text heavy; even its video page doesn’t feature pictures or descriptions of the videos- only hyperlinks. King County, however, provides the best in using specific books to build specific early literacy skills with children- this was very unique among the resources reviewed. See the guide here. However, the booklists featured, independent of the guide, didn’t feature item records that were linked to the library’s catalog. While the lists are helpful, they have very little digital functionality.

What I found most unique about Get Ready was the inclusion of checklists for parents, in both English and Spanish, for the home, for the classroom, and for family child care. Out of these three, the most poignant is the Home Literacy Environment Checklist, which strives to make parents more aware of their children’s surrounding and their own behavior. Get it here. This is a marked departure from many other resources, as most focus on what the child should be learning, rather than what the parents should be doing to support their children’s literacy skill development. Within the checklist, adults must answer what they or another adult do, such as “I or another adult in the house help my child learn nursery rhymes,” and what children see the adult doing, such as “My child sees me or another adult in the house reading books, magazines or the newspaper nearly every day”. King County featured these checklists, although they didn’t attribute them to Get Ready to Read.

The major advantage of READY! for Kindergarten is the use of instructors over a multi-year period; this strength is also the program’s limitation. The program is currently in 18 states and one province; however, most of the programs are in the State of Washington, where it was developed. While the program is expanding to different communities, somewhat rapidly, it is not widely available. It’s also the most costly—none of the materials are provided free of charge, unlike the other resources.

The advantage of the other four- Get Ready to Read, Zero to Three, Center for Early Learning Literacy, and King County’s Ready to Read program- is that so much material, in some cases all of the material, and content is provided free of charge, and has complementing articles and videos. The drawback is the utility of these four resources is entirely dependent of the motivation of the parents and practitioners to seek out this information and use it.


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