As a youth services assistant, parents often ask for suggestions for DVDs and related media to help their child learn to read. In this assignment, I have evaluated five digital early learning resources including TV shows, DVDs, and a music CD. Each evaluation describes the resource’s usefulness and appropriateness for the 0-4 years old age group.
The new Sesame Street is as good as or better than I remembered as a child. Since 1969, parents and children have watched their favorite characters weave lessons about life and community between early literacy skills. Segments and skits are educational yet entertaining. The lessons taught are positive and widely vary. The humor appeals to both parents and children which promotes inter generational viewing and interaction.
Sesame Street is bright and inviting, showing children and characters from varied cultural backgrounds. Characters engage in everyday activities which serve as great inspiration to parents and children. In the episode I reviewed, Count Von Count is counting the food on his plate at breakfast when Baby Bear decides he would like to learn how to count too. Count Von Count shows Baby Bear that counting everything can teach you to be a better counter. This sets the common theme throughout the show that everyday activities can be lessons for math and literacy.
Sesame Street is well known as an educational tool. The show improves cognitive skills and school readiness skills (Walsh, 1995). Their young viewers gain an advantage in math, vocabulary, letter knowledge, phonological awareness, print motivation, and other school readiness skills. The street name and its residents have become iconic. Although new characters have been added, Sesame Street is still the same great education tool that continues to reinvent itself. This series is easy to like and fun to watch. The target age for this series is 3-5 years old.
Between the Lions is an award winning PBS program. The series premiered in 2000. The program consists of different segments focusing promoting literacy skills to its audience. Each show playfully teaches about a letter sound from a rhyme or book. I previewed Between the Lions: Fuzzy Wuzzy, Wuzzy? Segments included “Gawain’s Word”, “Cliff hanger”, and “The Vowelles”. The program focused on the short “u” sound with a variety of great skits and segments showing how different words can be made using the same short “u” sound.
This series is entertaining both for the child and the parent. It demonstrates valuable reading skills in a fun and interactive way. The segments serve as great skill builders for a variety of early literacy skills including phonological awareness, vocabulary, and print motivation. Concepts and text are often repeated for additional practice and building fluency. Vocabulary used in discussion between characters was not oversimplified. It served as a great vocabulary builder for viewers. Out of the five digital media sources, I find this show to be the most valuable tool to help children to become successful readers. The content and humor are age appropriate and easily enjoyed by the entire family. Between the Lions is a definite “must see” for the 3-7 years old audience.
Baby Einstein is a line of early development products by Disney. The line includes DVDs, music CDs, and board books. I evaluated part of their DVD collection. The DVD is primarily a slideshow of images based on a theme with classical music composed to appeal to the baby ear. The sample DVD I previewed was about shapes. An upbeat rhino hand puppet draws different shapes. Each drawing is followed by real life images of items that are the same shape. Dialogue is few and far between, but the imagery continues to change providing the child with a wide variety of shapes.
Parents often bring Baby Einstein to the desk inquiring about its usefulness. If used as intended, meaning the program was watched by both parent and child together, Baby Einstein has the potential to be a great learning tool. The program serves as an enjoyable way to share time together with music and visual stimuli. By allowing for the parent to name the images shared throughout the program and listening to the music, parents are able to promote vocabulary and phonological awareness.
By far, Baby Einstein was the least favorite of the sources reviewed. Although the DVD boasts promotion of parent child interaction and exposure to the world around the child, there was little inspiration for interaction throughout the program. The lack of dialogue was disappointing. Children could benefit from labeling the collection of images, but the program misses this opportunity to build vocabulary too. It leaves the task of object identification and vocabulary building to the parent. Also, this series was the only early literacy source that required purchase. Unfortunately the program was not worth the money spent. Research (Arnold, 2007) further supports this observation by demonstrating that Baby Einstein is no better than its competitors. If used as intended, Baby Einstein still serves as a great resource.This series is ideal for 0-24 months. After 2 years, the content may be too simple to retain the child's interest.
Turtle tuck, Linny the Guinea Pig, and Ming Ming the duckling travel the world to save other animals in need of help. Through the power of teamwork, these classroom pets find a way to save the day and teach an important lesson about empathy and friendship. At the beginning of each episode, a bulleted list appears to point out the many benefits of this unique children’s show: early reading skills, music appreciation, and teamwork! In the episodes I previewed, the Wonder Pets ventured out to help a donkey actor who was not prepared for a play. A discussion about what it meant to be “prepared” followed as well as demonstrating how to become prepared for the show.
Targeted for preschoolers, Wonder Pets is a Nick Jr. show animated with photo puppetry. It gives a striking effect of real life images of animals animated to tell a story. Each episode is reminiscent of an opera or a musical theater show. The majority of the dialogue is sung to original scores. Singing allows children to hear the smaller sounds that make up words. Due to the opera like quality, the musical dialogue is able to promote phonological awareness with the over dramatized dialogue and lyrics. The choice in terminology in both song and dialogue further promoted early literacy. The terminology was not oversimplified resulting in an opportunity to build vocabulary. As a digital early learning resource, this TV show scores high. The opera is charming and hard to forget. Wonder Pets is an easy show to like. Parents will find this show easy to watch and a delight to share. The recommended age group for this series is 3-5 years old.
Dr. Jean is a story time staple. Her CD, Dr. Jean Sings silly songs, is a favorite with “Bubble Gum” and “Alligator Chant”. Most of the songs on this CD are sung to familiar tunes like “Shortnin’ Bread” or “Skip to My Lou” which allows parents and children alike to easily sing along. This collection of sings includes “Katalina Matalina”, “Baby Fish”, and a variety of other story time favorites.
Music helps with a variety of early literacy skills. Songs promote phonological awareness, vocabulary building and narrative skills. Letter knowledge, print awareness, and print motivation are not excluded in the musical arena, but their presence is not as abundant as the other skills mentioned. Dr. Jean Sings Silly Songs is not an exception. Her songs provide opportunity to further reinforce these early literacy skills. The songs involve large motions and unpredictable lyrics sung at varied tempos and volumes. The varied tempos allow for songs to be sung slightly slower enabling kids to sing and hear every sound. “Bubblegum” describes the properties of gum using hand motions and song. Any kind of naming or description promotes vocabulary building. Also, the verses in the songs promote narrative skills. As each verse is added the songs build much like a story builds with its beginning, middle, and end .
The songs are easy to sing along with your child. The actions are easily available via Dr. Jean’s YouTube channel and through the scripted actions in the lyric book, but one can easily create their own choreography to complement the music. These features allow for easy interaction between parent and child. I often use this CD in my story time. At first, I thought the songs would bore my audience. To my surprise, they love it and request it often! Children love the silliness that ensues in each song. They become so engaged that they have forgotten that they’re still learning a valuable literacy lesson. I highly recommend this music CD as an early learning resource. This music CD is ideal for a preschool audience.
References:
Arnold, R., & Colburn, N. (2007). Brain Food. School Library Journal, 53(1), 29.
Sebesta, K. (2006). Between the Lions. Library Media Connection, 24(7), 92.
Sesame Street program promotes literacy. (1996). Reading Today, 13(6), 16.
Walsh, M. (1995). `sesame street' incorporates theories on cognition. Education Week, 15(14), 3.
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