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Preschoolers Benefit From Television And Video Games
Filed under: In The News, Research Reveals: Toddlers & Preschoolers
TV and video games may be good for your kids. Credit: Corbis
These kids know Jack.And it actually gives them an advantage as they enter kindergarten. It turns out watching a video of "Jack and the Beanstalk" teaches you more than how to outwit a surly giant.
A group of 398 children in 80 preschool classes in low-income neighborhoods in New York and San Francisco were taught with a curriculum heavy on TV shows and video games for 10 weeks. They outscored children who had not had the curriculum on the ability to name and know the sounds of letters, recognize the letters in their own names and understand basic concepts about stories and printed words.
Public television shows for children played a big role in the study, conducted by the Education Development Center Inc., a global nonprofit organization that evaluates programs designed to promote education, health and economic development. Children in the study watched such PBS shows as "Sesame Street" and "Between the Lions." The study confirmed the educational value of such shows.
Cookie Monster and Big Bird were probably banking on that result. The study was commissioned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The results were nonetheless significant, researcher William Penuel told the Reuters news service. "We know public media can improve literacy skills when children watch at home," he said. "What we didn't know is that content from multiple shows could be effectively integrated into a curriculum and implemented by teachers."
Children also watched specific videos such as "Jack and the Beanstalk," "Soul Letter O" and "Bee Bim Bop" while playing games such as "Storybook Creator," "Big Bird's Letters" and "ABCD Watermelon."
Using media in the classroom has been controversial, Education Development Center Director Shelley Pasnik told Reuters "To make these kinds of gains after preschoolers and teachers use technology we think is especially significant," she said.
Related: TV Noise Bad for Kids
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
10-22-2009 @ 4:38PM
SKL said...Well, it's important to note that they only tested low-income kids. Several considerations come to mind:
1) Preschools for low-income kids (think Head Start) don't focus on literacy and they don't employ the best and brightest on average.
2) Low-income preschoolers are less likely to receive exposure to literacy in their home environment or anywhere else, for that matter, other than on TV.
3) Low-income preschoolers may be more likely to watch TV at home and thus better at gleaning knowledge therefrom.
I don't believe TV is the bogeyman, but I also believe that a preschooler who is exposed to literacy (aside from on TV) on a regular basis does not need to watch TV to develop reading skills.
I'm a bit concerned by the idea that preschool teachers and daycare workers and SAHMs will use this as an excuse to park kids in front of the boob toob more than they already do. And that could be bad for them physically, socially, etc., if it goes too far.
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10-23-2009 @ 6:25AM
k said...And what will it do for their attention spans, long term?
It makes them into passive and not active learners. If you have babies and young children, they need exposure to the world, they need to play games, they need to have someone read to them.
What they don't need is to be plopped in baby chairs in front of the glowing box.
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10-28-2009 @ 11:19PM
mommiedear said...I agree . a little TV is good and video games that are educaional. On www.truuconfessions.com will agree with me.
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11-08-2009 @ 8:44PM
Renee Mosiman said...I have written a book called "The Smarter Preschooling : Unlocking Your Child's Intellectual Potential" and did lots of research on kids watching long hours of television. The findings suggest that kids who watch long hours of tv are more prone to attention problems, and later academic problems.
Renee, author of
www.thesmarterpreschooler.com
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