Comments on: Project Hope http://www.audaciousideas.org/?p=359 Audacious Ideas is a blog created to stimulate ideas and discussion about solutions to difficult problems in Baltimore. Each week, we will ask individuals to think candidly and audaciously about what can be done to promote opportunity, achievement, health and prosperity in our city. Open Society Institute-Baltimore believes that discussion and debate are critical to making positive, lasting changes. We see this as a testing ground where ideas can be considered and discussion can be fostered. Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:25:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Laura Lou Meadows http://www.audaciousideas.org/?p=359&cpage=1#comment-5798 Laura Lou Meadows Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:04:15 +0000 http://www.audaciousideas.org/?p=359#comment-5798 Dear Mr. Covington, if you want to help students improve their reading ability, try TV captions. Reading, a national problem. As you know, historically our nation has relied on teachers in classrooms to teach reading. But when a third of 4th graders have not learned to read at the basic level and later many of these same struggling students drop out of high school because they can’t easily read their 11th and 12th grade texts, teachers critically need fresh innovative help. TV captions can help children learn to read. Opening the closed TV captions transforms the ordinary television set into a free reading tutor. TV captions create an unrivalled opportunity for a learner to connect the sound of the spoken word with the sight of the printed word in the context of the picture and the action unfolding on the screen to explain and reinforce the meaning of the words. The research has been done. Over 25 years of ongoing research validates the concept that seeing the printed TV captions as the words are spoken helps many students learn to read. See research listed on the website www.captionsforliteracy.org. Much of this research is published in academic journals of limited circulation. We invite your attention to a recent, well balanced study On-screen print: the role of captions as a supplemental literacy tool by Linebarger, Piotrowski & Greenwood, available online by Googling DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2009.01407.x, and soon to be published by the Journal of Research in Reading. The federal legislation is in place. Since January 2006 TV captions have been available, by federal mandate, on virtually all network and cable stations and programs, 20 out of 24 hours a day, every day all year long, thanks to decades of lobbying by organizations for the deaf. TV captions can be turned on with a click of the CC button on the remote control or with the use of the television set’s menu. Who can TV captions help? TV captions can help millions, from toddlers to struggling students to disadvantaged inner city children to high school drop outs to English language learners to low literacy adults. Can educators afford to waste the millions spent to produce TV captions? Although producers and broadcasters spend millions of dollars a year to provide TV captions, TV captions are absolutely free for viewers. Can we afford to waste the educational value of these expenditures for providing TV captions? Or the 7300 hours a year this priceless free resource is available for reading practice? TV captions are a supplement, not a substitute, for teachers or families. We know that TV captions are a supplement, not a substitute for classroom instruction by teachers. We know that TV captions cannot substitute for the warmth of a family member reading to a child. But when children don’t learn in school and there is no family member able to read to their kids, where there is only a single parent with two jobs and little free time or where the reading skills of the family are shaky or where a foreign language is spoken at home, TV captions are readily available and tireless. How to get the most benefit for television that is watched in any event. The point is not for learners to watch more television, but to be sure that the TV captions are turned on whenever they do watch. It may take time for the value of TV captions to be realized and they may not help each and every learner, but even classroom teachers cannot guarantee reading success for 100% of their students. Many toddlers now watch 2 to 3 hours a day of television and many older kids see television 5 to 7 hours a day. But with TV captions turned on to age-appropriate programs 15 to 50 hours a week, it adds up to hundreds or thousands of hours a year when learners can practice at home connecting the sight of printed TV captions to the sound of the spoken words. Pediatricians recant prior objections to television. In a March 2009 about face, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Pediatrics, concluded that "TV viewing between birth and 2 years of age was neither beneficial nor deleterious to child cognitive and language abilities at 3 years of age," reversing their earlier position that parents should avoid any television viewing for children under the age of 2. In other words, television itself is a neutral medium. Unfortunately, the pediatricians did not evaluate any programs while showing TV captions. You are in a unique position to spread the word. You are in an ideal position to help mobilize the beneficial potential of TV captions with your network that reaches both parents and teachers. Please tell families and teachers about their ability to use TV captions to practice reading at home and in after school and summer programs. Feedback. We are especially grateful for your feedback on questions such as your experience telling parents about TV captions, how many children have tried TV captions at home and how effective TV captions are over the long term (several months to a year) in helping children learn to read or read better. Particularly, it would be useful to hear how you would like to see TV captions improved. Respond to captionsliteracy@hotmail.com Dear Mr. Covington, if you want to help students improve their reading ability, try TV captions.
Reading, a national problem. As you know, historically our nation has relied on teachers in classrooms to teach reading. But when a third of 4th graders have not learned to read at the basic level and later many of these same struggling students drop out of high school because they can’t easily read their 11th and 12th grade texts, teachers critically need fresh innovative help.

TV captions can help children learn to read. Opening the closed TV captions transforms the ordinary television set into a free reading tutor. TV captions create an unrivalled opportunity for a learner to connect the sound of the spoken word with the sight of the printed word in the context of the picture and the action unfolding on the screen to explain and reinforce the meaning of the words.

The research has been done. Over 25 years of ongoing research validates the concept that seeing the printed TV captions as the words are spoken helps many students learn to read. See research listed on the website http://www.captionsforliteracy.org. Much of this research is published in academic journals of limited circulation. We invite your attention to a recent, well balanced study On-screen print: the role of captions as a supplemental literacy tool by Linebarger, Piotrowski & Greenwood, available online by Googling DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2009.01407.x, and soon to be published by the Journal of Research in Reading.

The federal legislation is in place. Since January 2006 TV captions have been available, by federal mandate, on virtually all network and cable stations and programs, 20 out of 24 hours a day, every day all year long, thanks to decades of lobbying by organizations for the deaf. TV captions can be turned on with a click of the CC button on the remote control or with the use of the television set’s menu.

Who can TV captions help? TV captions can help millions, from toddlers to struggling students to disadvantaged inner city children to high school drop outs to English language learners to low literacy adults.

Can educators afford to waste the millions spent to produce TV captions? Although producers and broadcasters spend millions of dollars a year to provide TV captions, TV captions are absolutely free for viewers. Can we afford to waste the educational value of these expenditures for providing TV captions? Or the 7300 hours a year this priceless free resource is available for reading practice?

TV captions are a supplement, not a substitute, for teachers or families. We know that TV captions are a supplement, not a substitute for classroom instruction by teachers. We know that TV captions cannot substitute for the warmth of a family member reading to a child. But when children don’t learn in school and there is no family member able to read to their kids, where there is only a single parent with two jobs and little free time or where the reading skills of the family are shaky or where a foreign language is spoken at home, TV captions are readily available and tireless.

How to get the most benefit for television that is watched in any event. The point is not for learners to watch more television, but to be sure that the TV captions are turned on whenever they do watch. It may take time for the value of TV captions to be realized and they may not help each and every learner, but even classroom teachers cannot guarantee reading success for 100% of their students.

Many toddlers now watch 2 to 3 hours a day of television and many older kids see television 5 to 7 hours a day. But with TV captions turned on to age-appropriate programs 15 to 50 hours a week, it adds up to hundreds or thousands of hours a year when learners can practice at home connecting the sight of printed TV captions to the sound of the spoken words.

Pediatricians recant prior objections to television. In a March 2009 about face, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Pediatrics, concluded that “TV viewing between birth and 2 years of age was neither beneficial nor deleterious to child cognitive and language abilities at 3 years of age,” reversing their earlier position that parents should avoid any television viewing for children under the age of 2. In other words, television itself is a neutral medium. Unfortunately, the pediatricians did not evaluate any programs while showing TV captions.

You are in a unique position to spread the word. You are in an ideal position to help mobilize the beneficial potential of TV captions with your network that reaches both parents and teachers. Please tell families and teachers about their ability to use TV captions to practice reading at home and in after school and summer programs.

Feedback. We are especially grateful for your feedback on questions such as your experience telling parents about TV captions, how many children have tried TV captions at home and how effective TV captions are over the long term (several months to a year) in helping children learn to read or read better. Particularly, it would be useful to hear how you would like to see TV captions improved.
Respond to captionsliteracy@hotmail.com

]]> By: Michael Di Menna http://www.audaciousideas.org/?p=359&cpage=1#comment-5785 Michael Di Menna Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:30:40 +0000 http://www.audaciousideas.org/?p=359#comment-5785 Ronald....Good thinking and eventually the kinds of commonsense approaches to valuing students(People) enough by folks like you will open the gates for change that is truly no child left behind. All children have value and deserve a life...We know all too well the path of non-caring, underachieving, low esteem and few skills has on being prepared for opportunity as a child grows in to adulthood if they ever get there. The cost of your proposal is much less that what we pay at the other end for services, incarceration, and all the other cost for the uneducated. Hats off to you Sir! Ronald….Good thinking and eventually the kinds of commonsense approaches to valuing students(People) enough by folks like you will open the gates for change that is truly no child left behind. All children have value and deserve a life…We know all too well the path of non-caring, underachieving, low esteem and few skills has on being prepared for opportunity as a child grows in to adulthood if they ever get there. The cost of your proposal is much less that what we pay at the other end for services, incarceration, and all the other cost for the uneducated. Hats off to you Sir!

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