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We hear a lot about the promise of technology closing the achievement gap, but few studies have definitively shown this to be true. In this article in Spotlight on Digital Media & Learning by Sara Jackon, a recent study by the Center for Children and Technology delves into how digital media can make an impact on the preschool set.

By Sara Jackson

“We have some children who can operate a computer, enjoy reading books and have an extensive vocabulary,” said Rosalie Moran, curriculum director for two Head Start centers based in Harlem and the Bronx. “And we have others who have never been around other children before and need a lot of help with the social emotional skills.”

Complicating classroom education further, some of the children speak limited or no English; some have special needs, including language or learning delays.

As a group, preschoolers from low-income families are often behind on fundamental literacy skills. Studies show these children arrive for their first day of kindergarten with less emergent literacy skills than children from higher-income families.

Several years ago, four of Moran’s classrooms participated in an evaluation of how well video and interactive games produced as part of PBS’s Ready to Learn initiative could teach early literacy skills to children from low-income families.

The randomized control study of 398 children from 80 preschool classrooms, found that when coupled with professional development, a media-rich curriculum could improve early literacy skills. The 4- and 5-year-olds from low-income families who had been taught with the media curriculum showed increases in letter recognition, sounds associated with letters, and understanding basic concepts about stories and print.

“The reason it worked is that we had at our disposal high-quality media content,” said Shelley Pasnik, director of the Center for Children and Technology at the Education Development Center in New York City and an author of the study. “We placed an emphasis on high quality media and professional development for educators.”

The curriculum included intensive professional development and teacher-led activities with video and interactive games from the PBS television shows “Super Why!,” “Between the Lions” and “Sesame Street.”

Through training and coaching visits to the classroom, the teachers were given instruction on how and when to stop the videos and guide children’s learning.

“What was different with this study,” Moran told Spotlight, “was that the teacher was actually viewing the episode with the children and interacting with the children, stopping to ask questions, pausing in certain places.”

Moran said teachers were very enthusiastic about the curriculum and the support they received. Several of the participants have continued to use it in their classrooms after the study’s conclusion.

Pasnik said that the kids who had the most to learn made the greatest gains: “Those kids in the bottom fifth who knew the fewest numbers of letters, ended up learning the most letters.”

She points out that these results are particularly significant because literacy curricula doesn’t have a great success rate. A recent U.S. Department of Education review of experimental studies of literacy curricula found only two that had significant positive effects.

The latest round in PBS’s Ready to Learn Television grant competition awarded funding to support “transmedia storytelling” for children age 2 to 8, with the goal of producing stories that children can watch and interact with across multiple forms of media – including TV, websites, online games and mobile apps.

Pasnik says she sees a lot of learning potential in these newer technologies. Tablet computers for example, offer repetition, portability and the possibility of learning with gestural movements, all of which hold promise for preschool students.

She cautions that many of the apps being developed today place too much emphasis on academic skills and not enough emphasis on making things, discovering, sharing and turn taking.

“We do a disservice to young children in attending to a very rigid and narrow sense of math and literacy and not really paying attention to the developmental needs of this age group,” said Pasnik.

“The uptake of adoption here is far in advance of the research. But that’s not to say that we can’t be really thoughtful about what we do know about children’s development.”

PBS

Kim Storey is an educator, designer, and producer who specializes in creating innovative educational media for children, parents, and educators.

By Kim Storey, Ed.D.

Teaching science to preschoolers? When I first entered the field of education—and children’s television—no one thought that you could or should teach science to children that young.

Today we know that young children have great capacities to learn science concepts and get engaged in doing science. Children are naturally curious about the world and how it works, and science learning for young children starts with wondering and asking questions.

Back in the 1950s, Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, created “The Cat in the Hat” beginning reading books in response to concerns that American children were lagging behind in literacy. The Cat in the Hat revolutionized teaching reading to young kids. Now more than half a century later, it’s helping teach science to young children through the new PBS TV series and websites, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!

Websites for Parents and Teachers

As KQED’s director and creator of the educational resources for The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, my role was to design websites for parents and teachers that extended the learning from the TV programs. Websites connected to children’s PBS programs provide another way to help parents and teachers use quality educational programming to help children learn.

PBS

The television series whisks viewers away to explore places they’ve never been before, such as diving inside flowers to learn more about the animals that depend on them to live or shrinking to bee-size to explore a hive and discover how honey is made.

The educational resources, available on the PBS Parents and PBS Teachers websites, were developed in conjunction with science educators and designed to provide young children with opportunities to explore the science ideas introduced in the programs in the contexts of their own homes, neighborhoods, and schools. Children are also encouraged to visit their local libraries, science museums, aquariums, parks, and zoos to continue their science explorations.

Parents and educators will find tips, strategies, activities, and resources to help them engage children in the types of science experiences that form a foundation for future science learning.

Look for:

• Explorer’s Guides for parents and teachers that explains what science learning and inquiry means for young children, including The Cat in the Hat’s “Top Ten Tips for Engaging Young Children in Science.”

• Activities for parents and teachers that connect programs from the series with specially designed hands-on learning experiences. Activities also include video clips from the programs, definitions of science words, recommendations of books and other resources, and ideas for extending children’s science experiences and learning.

• Viewing Tips for parents and teachers to help promote children’s active viewing and learning from the series and connect the science ideas in the episodes with children’s learning experiences at home, in classrooms, and during outdoor explorations.

• Online Games available on the PBS Kids website for that provide kids with more interactive ways to explore the science concepts in the programs and activities.

The Explorer’s Guide and Activities are also available as PDFs for easy downloading and printing.

The TV Series

At the beginning of each The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! adventure, Sally or Nick poses a question about the natural world. Although the Cat knows a lot of things, he doesn’t know everything and he’s also curious to learn more. In one program, for example, Nick wonders what it would be like to live in a tree all the time. Sally exclaims, “No one can live their whole life in a tree—It’s impossible!” The Cat responds, “Impossible? Is that so?” And off they go to the jungle in the Cat’s one-of-a-kind contraption, the Thinga-ma-jigger, to look for animals that live in trees. It’s this insatiable curiosity that sparks the friends’ adventures.

In each program, the Cat in the Hat and his friends Sally and Nick go on a science adventure such as flying with birds to discover how and why they migrate or taking a snowcat to the Arctic to explore freezing and melting. Guided by the Cat, the children figure things out by engaging in science inquiry. They ask questions, make observations, make predictions, plan investigations, collect data, make discoveries, and generate and discuss ideas about how the world works.

The television series, which premiered nationally on PBS last month, featuring of course the Cat in the Hat, along with his friends Sally and Nick, use Seussian wit and whimsy to spark a love of learning and an interest in science in preschool-age and Kindergarten children. The first season includes 40 half-hour episodes, and each episode includes two animated adventures, along with short animated clips.

The show is voiced by actor Martin Short and produced by Portfolio Entertainment Inc. and Collingwood O’Hare Productions, in association with Dr. Seuss Enterprises, Random House Children’s Entertainment, Treehouse, and PBS KIDS.  The presenting PBS station is KQED.