Targeting children six to eight years old, The Electric Company is the newest program to join the PBS Kids television lineup.  Created by Sesame Workshop, the show aims to support the language and literacy skills of its young viewers with a special emphasis on reaching those who are at most risk for developing proficient literacy skills.   The show has four key educational objectives:  (1) improve viewers’ vocabulary skills, (2) improve viewers’ phonics knowledge, (3) teach viewers strategies to improve their comprehension of connected text, and (4) foster motivation towards reading activities.    The show features an engaging central narrative interspersed with brief interstitials.   In the narrative, viewers are presented with the story of a group of four urban youth who use their literary powers to solve problems created by their neighborhood pranksters, while simultaneously integrating the program’s target vocabulary words.   During the short interstitials, viewers are presented with animated and live-action songs, rhymes, raps, and adventures that highlight phonics skills.  Lessons related to connected text and motivation for reading activities are subtly woven throughout the entire program.

The current study is the first summative evaluation of The Electric Company and seeks to measure the impact of the program on young children’s language and literacy skills, with specific attention paid to the core educational objectives of the show.   Using a multiple setting approach (i.e. home versus school viewing), we will also evaluate whether the impact of the program is moderated by the setting.   Finally, by incorporating aspects of The Electric Company’s outreach and broadband materials, the study will evaluate the additive effects of a “360 approach” to learning.   Results will provide information on how the television program, content-related website and online games, and content-related classroom outreach activities both individually and collectively influence children’s language and literacy skills.

Vocabulary knowledge represents one key piece to children’s success in literacy and language (National Reading Panel, 2000). Having rich vocabulary knowledge has been linked to higher reading achievement (e.g., Anderson & Freebody, 1981), among other outcomes. Yet, not every child has the same exposure to a wide variety of words (e.g., Hart & Risley, 1995), and this leads to concern for their later literacy and school success. Promoting young children’s acquisition of words remains an urgent issue for educators, and understanding how vocabulary develops is pertinent to researchers and theorists.

Children learn the meaning of words from different sources, including from parents and teachers as well other sources, such as books, television and other media. Watching television is a consistent and lasting activity in the lives of young children, who watch television and videos/DVDs regularly throughout the day and week (Rideout & Hamel, 2006). With that time spent watching television, the question remains how it affects viewers in a variety of areas, including literacy and language (see Moses, 2008 for a review). Vocabulary is no exception; indeed, for over 3 decades, researchers have examined the influence of television on aspects of children’s vocabulary development.

Learning to read involves a complex integration of placing print into context while breaking the code of letters and symbols used to represent objects and concepts.   Numerous interventions have been developed and used to improve one or more of these literacy components at various stages of reading development.  One of these interventions has been the use of educational television.   Children who have engaged with educational television content have shown improvement in different skills involved in reading including phonics, phonemic awareness, and vocabulary acquisition (Linebarger, 2006).  For much of this research, the television intervention has been utilized in the spring, towards the end of the academic year.  However, Linebarger (2002) suggests that showing the television program in the fall may be more effective to give children a boost in the early stages of reading development.  Therefore, this research project explores the implications of introducing a television program based on a strong literacy-skills curriculum, Super Why!, to Kindergarten children at the beginning of the school year and following their reading development over the academic year. 

Decades of research support our understanding that, created with the intent to teach, educational television can go far toward supporting a child’s academic and prosocial development (Fisch & Truglio, 2001; Singer & Singer, 2001). The newest addition to the educational television landscape is SUPER WHY!, a program that uses a narrative framework, participatory requests, and pseudo-contingent feedback to solve problems through storybook reading, modeling of key early literacy skills, and fun, interactive games. In total, 171 preschool children were randomly assigned to a SUPER WHY! viewing group or a Control viewing group. Parents were asked to have their children view 20 episodes of their assigned program twice and were asked to keep detailed logs reflecting who was viewing, which episodes were viewed, and how many times each episode was viewed. Children’s early literacy skills as measured using both program-specific content learning and normative performance were evaluated prior to viewing, after viewing all episodes at least one time, and after viewing all episodes a second time. Children who viewed SUPER WHY! over an 8-week period (i.e., at least 20 hours of viewing) outperformed their Control group peers on nearly all indices of program-specific learning as well as the majority of normative outcomes. Learning was most pronounced for letter knowledge and phonological and phonemic awareness skills, key early precursors to conventional reading success. To produce meaningful change on the outcomes of interest, children typically needed to view fewer than 10 episodes and generally closer to 3 or 4 episodes. Not only did children’s early literacy skills demonstrate significant and sustained growth associated with watching SUPER WHY!, they also loved the program and its characters. This high level of appeal suggests that SUPER WHY! has been successful in supporting learning in a highly engaging environment that is likely to maintain children’s interest. 

We examined whether children’s identification with various characters found in media influenced their learning and literacy outcomes. Specifically, children were divided into four groups: television program only; television plus manipulatives with TV characters; television plus manipulatives that were plain; no television or manipulatives. We hypothesized that children who identify more with particular TV characters will learn the most in the television plus manipulatives with TV characters condition, followed by the television plus manipulatives that are plain and the television only condition. Those children without any intervention will underperform the other 3 groups. We are also contrasting pre-Kindergarten children and 1st grade children to determine whether there is any developmental effect. Finally, we are examining how learning, independent of character identification, is impacted by different levels of intervention.

This report summarizes the key results from an experiment evaluating the effects of using an intervention designed around the educational television series Postcards from Buster (PFB) with second grade English Language Learners (ELL). The purposes were to determine the program’s unique educational benefits as well as general program appeal. Specifically, did this program enhance (1) receptive and productive language learning, (2) conversational language skills, and (3) map skills? Moreover, did children enjoy the program? 102 second grade children (Mean Age = 7.5 years) in the greater Kansas City metro area participated in this study. Eight classrooms were randomly assigned to one of four conditions (monitor only, control classroom intervention, PFB at Home, and PFB Classroom Intervention).  When combined with the classroom intervention materials, PFB was able to improve children’s receptive and productive vocabulary skills, skills that are critical for later reading comprehension success.

This report summarizes the key results from an evaluation of the appeal of Season 6, a new format, of the PBS Between the Lions (BTL) program. Specifically, the purpose was to assess the ability of the program to maintain viewer’s attention to the television, the appeal of words-on-screen, story elements and characters, and the impact, if any, of visual cutaways (or story interruptions) on story comprehension. The results suggest that the cutaways are having no negative impact on comprehension or enjoyment. Overall the program received high marks from child participants for character appeal. The most appealing characters were the Lion family and Fred.

This report summarizes our findings from an experiment evaluating the effects of using an intervention designed around the educational television series Postcards from Buster (PFB). The research presented here is from a small study designed to evaluate the effectiveness of both the PFB intervention materials and the researcher-developed assessment instruments. The sample included children who were English language learners between 7 to 10 years of age. The PFB intervention was developed around three themes or clusters. Cluster 1 (“making friends”) consisted of an emphasis on introductory and extending invitation language; Cluster 2 (“cultural traditions”) emphasized similarity and difference language; and Cluster 3 (“settings”) focused on directional and descriptive language. Overall, children’s participation in cluster-related activities appeared to be beneficial in one or more areas (i.e. vocabulary, functional language, map skills). The results suggest that Postcards from Buster and its accompanying classroom intervention materials do lead to positive changes in both receptive and productive vocabulary, functional language, and general knowledge of directional terms. In addition, the majority of children who watched the program liked it and wanted to watch it at home.

The primary goal of this study was to examine the educational benefits of the Sesame Workshop program Pinky Dinky Doo for economically disadvantaged preschool children living in an inner-city neighborhood.   Using a quasi-experimental design, we compared those children who viewed the program with children who viewed other programming, as well as with a group of children who did not view any programming.   Results suggested that children who viewed Pinky Dinky Doo performed significantly better that their alternate-viewing and non-viewing peers on a variety of early literacy outcome measures.   Specifically, Pinky Dinky Doo viewers had higher narrative competence scores, story knowledge scores, vocabulary knowledge scores, and code-related skills. 

Some of the very best educational and appealing television can be found in the short public service announcements or interstitials that air between children's programs. The Healthy Minutes interstitials developed by Iowa Public Television (IPTV) have the ability to enhance learning, extend knowledge and teach important health-related messages. It is important to evaluate the extent to which these messages attract young children’s attention; the degree to which the interstitials support children’s comprehension of the actual messages as well as the degree to which children are able to transfer these messages to novel contexts (e.g., generalization of these messages) and the extent that young children rate these messages as appealing (or not). The purpose of this evaluation was to examine the educational potential of IPTV’s Healthy Minutes interstitial messages.  Results suggest that Healthy Minutes message were successful in teaching children important health-related information. 

The second installment of the Formative Evaluation of Bark Park Place (BPP) summarizes analyses from a set of questions surrounding children’s perceived usability of the computer screen interface and their self-reported assessment of this component of BPP. Specifically, the purposes of this report are to assess children’s understanding of the function of each icon (e.g., rocks on bookshelf, treasure chest) in the Tree House; to identify those components of the program that were liked and disliked; and to highlight areas that proved difficult to navigate. Results showed that children were generally positive about the computer interface.

All data in this report were collected as part of the Bark Park Place Group School Study.

The second installment of the Formative Evaluation of Bark Park Place (BPP) summarizes analyses from a set of questions surrounding children’s perceived usability of the computer screen interface and their self-reported assessment of this component of BPP. Specifically, the purposes of this report are to assess children’s understanding of the function of each icon (e.g., rocks on bookshelf, treasure chest) in the Tree House; to identify those components of the program that were liked and disliked; and to highlight areas that proved difficult to navigate. Results showed that children were generally positive about the computer interface.

All data in this report were collected as part of the Bark Park Place Group School Study.