Prime Time; 107; TV Viewing and Its Influence on Learning

[children singing] [children singing about "What makes me happy inside"] [children singing] Hello. I'm Ed Sardella, host of Prime Time, a weekly series to create public awareness of the educational opportunities in the Denver public schools and to encourage the cooperative efforts of home and community to achieve excellence in education. Children are watching television on an average of 24 hours a week. By the time they graduate from high school they will have spent more hours in front of their television sets than in the classroom.

How TV viewing influences the learning environment is the focus for the first three segments of this week's Prime Time. In an interview, Fred Rogers from the television program Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, discusses the conflict between the real and the make believe world for the young viewer. George Moran and his son, Joel, act out a scene from Sesame Street, one of the suggestions on this week's activity card. Then a Prime Time project called "Watch Right" will describe how television can become a teaching tool. We'll also observe three preschool mothers encouraging their young children to become interested in books and reading specialists, Nick Glasser from the University of Northern Colorado, and Phyllis Adams from Denver University will be interviewed by superintendent of schools Dr. Brzeinski. For many years young TV viewers have been exploring Mr. Rogers neighborhood with Fred Rogers learning about the world they live in and developing an understanding of their own emotions and feelings. Mr. Rogers was recently in Denver performing at a Denver Symphony concert. In an interview he commented on the negative and

positive aspects of television viewing. [Lin Mrachek - interviewer] Mr. Rogers, often times, television is criticized as being very harmful to children. What suggestions do you have for parents of how to use television wisely? [Fred Rogers] It's very difficult very difficult. There's one thing about television and that is that it is the most accessible medium of anything that we have in the world. And it is right in the middle of the family. I think that people watch far too much television. And there must be reasons for this. When children are watching excessively, I think it might be important to ask, Why? When it detracts from children playing and it really

concerns me, because just as I did with the piano and the puppets, expressed who I was and what I was feeling through play, it's important that children learn to play and play well. And so if television or anything else takes away from their ability to play, then I think that it must be carefully guarded. Many parents that I know have had strong restrictions as far as television is concerned. It's tough because that makes the parent the ogre. And children will take whatever happens to be on the television and superimpose that monster right on top of the mother or the father. And especially children around four or five. It's going to be very

natural for them to have nightmares about monsters and great big overpowering things anyway. And if they see a lot of this on television they're going to get the idea that maybe they really are real. That's why we have the reality part of the neighborhood and the make-believe part of the neighborhood. What happens in make-believe often could never happen in reality. A little boy told me yesterday after the concert, he said, "I know the difference between what's pretend and what's real." And I said, "Well you certainly have learned an awful lot for such a young person." He said, "I know that purple panda in reality could never just ping in and ping out like he does in make-believe. I said, "That's absolutely so."

But a lot of that comes from my mediation. You know I say that could never happen here. After the make-believe part comes back to me you know and I say "Did you see how purple panda just disappeared so quickly? That could never happen here." Well I know that many parents use the neighborhood, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood as a springboard for family communications. I remember one of the astronauts' wives telling me that after our program which dealt with the death of my goldfish and my remembering how sad I was when my dog died when I was little and talked about that, she said that after that program, was the first time that her two young daughters were able to talk with her about their

daddy's death. So they used that. Of course, I just think that's the most wonderful use of any medium. Parents using what they see together with their children to make it their own. [end of Mr. Rogers voice] [Narrator, Ed Sardella resumes] Television can have a positive impact on your child if the programs he views are suitable for his age and stimulate learning activities. The theme for this week's activity card is Tune In To Learn. George Morin and his son Joel, a kindergarten student at Johnson School, recreate a scene from Sesame Street to show how concepts learned from a television program can be emphasized in a home activity. [George Morin] The essence of it is for us to see whether Joel is watching television and learning anything from 'em. He is. So the activity that we were using with Prime Time is excellent because it allows him and I to do something together as well as trying to find out you know if he's really learning the

basic concepts of numbers is what we were aiming at just to see if he's grasping what he should be grasping. [Morin] You know what the number three is? [Joel Morin] mhm. [George Morin] You're sure. What does it look like? You're sure? [ Joel draws a 3 in the air] Okay. Can you can you find in this book with the count. [Joel Morin] Yeah [George Morin] Show me. Where? [Joel Morin giggles and points in book] Why is this three? [Joel Morin] Because it has three turtles: one, two, three. [George Morin] Right. Our concept is try to let him do as much as he's capable of doing. I cut out the thing with a knife for him but then try to get him to do everything else in terms of making the knobs just like our television set, putting a number on it for Channel 6 which is for Sesame Street. Then letting him choose the numbers and then letting him go around and helping him find things that we're going to represent the threes. Click now you're on.

[Joel hums song of Sesame Street] "Today we're gonna do number three. These are frisbees. One, two, three. These are characters from Sesame Street. one, two three. And that's all. [George Morin] "click." [Ed Sardella] The activity card for Tune In To Learn has many other suggestions. In grades 2 and 3, listen to several commercials then invent a product and write an ad. Or keep a weather chart and write a few words to describe the weather like a weather forecaster would do on TV. Students in grades 4 through 6 can select a book and read about a musical

instrument. Then watch for that instrument on a musical program. For the sports fan, tune in for a sports event and then consult the Guinness Book of World Records for record setting information. Children will also be interested in reading about people, places or events they see on television. In 1978, ABC Community Relations tested a pilot project called "Be a TV Reviewer" where students wrote reviews of TV programs and their effectiveness. The program was so successful that this year a project called 'Watch Right' has been implemented by ABC. Locally, Channel 9 is sponsoring this prime time activity. Stephanie Erickson, promotions manager at Channel 9, describes the project. [Mrachek] What is Channel Nine's Watch Right Program? [Stephanie Erickson] Channel Nine's Watch Right Program is part of a program that was started by ABC in 1978. It was a pilot program called "Be A TV Reviewer." And they used it experimentally in two cities in Sioux City, Iowa. And in White Plains, New

York. And it asked students to write reviews of television programs, give their opinions, make their recommendations. And it was met with so much enthusiasm that ABC decided to make it a national program called "Watch Right." And Channel 9 and ABC are using it as a ?commitment? basic to using television as a teaching tool. [Mrachek] What do you see is is the reason why this program is necessary? [Erickson] Well, I think number one it's part of that relates to your prime time situation which is where you are encouraging adults, both parents and friends of family and teachers to participate with their children in primetime or friends of children and to be a part of. And it's the same with watching television. We really do feel that when children or teenagers or whomever watch television that it should be a family participation. That the TV screen should not be used as a babysitter, that there are good programs. And that there are values that are reflected in programming and we should encourage everyone, whether it's really a child or adult, to make thoughtful criticisms about what they are

seeing on TV. [Mrachekr] How did the Denver Public Schools get involved with Watch Right? [Erickson] Well this summer, Denver Public Schools came to us as a part of their Prime Time program to encourage and improve reading skills and they came and said, "Can you help us in some way publicize this?" and I said, "We have a project right now called "Watch Right" which would be very suitable and we would be glad to help you promote "Prime Time" and tie in "Watch Right" at the same time. And then the school said, well let's get together and develop some curriculum for students. So curriculum development specialists met with us and we told them what our TV programs are that would be suitable for children. And they came up with some questions and some programming. And now we are in 2nd and 3rd grades in October and in November, 10th 11th and 12th grades. [Mrachek] What is taking place then right in the classroom? [Erickson] Well in the classroom, the teachers have the list of the programs which children can read and the children in second and third grades were watching The Muppets, Kids World, ABC weekend specials. And they were asked to write

reviews of them overnight. They would write their reviews and then they would be in the classroom and they would read their review of the program. [Mrachek] Stephanie, what happens next after they have written the reviews. [Erickson] Well they would have a discussion. They would talk about what are the values that you see in this program? Some of the curriculum that was developed was very interesting. They asked children to look for such things as What are the values portrayed here? How do the people relate to one another? It's a very positive thing and it's really designed to encourage children to think about what they're watching and really to become more discerning television viewers as a result. So then there's a classroom sort of round robin discussion. Then the reviews are sent to Channel Nine. And we read them. and we grade them and then the child who writes the best review is going to appear on Nine News. [Ed Sardella] In November the top winners in grades 2 and 3 will be presenting their TV reviews on Channel 9 News. Students in grades 10, 11 and 12 must submit their reviews by November 30th to Channel 9.

The project's goal is to demonstrate that television can be used to motivate students to write creatively and to become discriminating viewers. The parent education and preschool program at Emily Griffith Opportunity School offers parents instruction in the vocation of parenting while the preschoolers participate in a supervised program to promote physical, emotional, social and mental development. Next, Jean Snyder, Alice Fleckenstein and Eleanor Metrockos (sp?) from a parents' group demonstrate how to help their preschool children capture the magic of books. [Elinor Mitrakos] I think it's important to have rhyme books to learn how to ... well, just hearing and repeating the rhyme it helps them to say words that are the same or opposite, just the repetition. I know that my children like to hear them and kind of act them out, too, sometimes so it's a lot of fun. [Alice Fleckenstein] You know with your thought of repetition we

should read the same book over and over and over again. We're tired of reading it but it's important to the child because it's reinforced the fact that we are reading the words and they're the same words no matter who reads them and no matter how many times they're read. [Mitrakos] Gets to the point where they can read them and they can read and you can't believe it. [Jean Snider] In other words what they have done is to memorize. And that's another reason to read to young children in that's really to help them increase their memory. And after you have read a story many times to a child, the child will pick up the story and just looking at the pictures will pretty much tell you the total story in his or her own words just based on just using that the pictures as cues as to what is going on in the story and they're able to do that because they've heard the stories so many times. [Fleckenstein] How about increasing their observational skills? Some of the books that have lots of things on them, ask them to find one thing.

[Mitrakos] A small thing or a big thing. [Fleckenstien] Right or we have searching a book for a certain item. We have a book that has one little character. He's on every page. And it's fun for them to find him on the pages. [Snider] I went to the library with our little boy and selected three books that I wanted to talk about with you today and perhaps share with our group of parents next week. And one of them that I selected, I selected because it has some vocabulary words that we mentioned earlier and also the words that we can kind of change our voices. For instance there's someone inside who moans and groans and howls (speaking with enthusiasm) and pushes the furniture around. So I selected this book because I could change my voice and by changing my voice also let

our little boy understand or gain an understanding of what the the meaning of the word might be. Another book I selected I selected it because it has rhyming words in it. In fact, the whole . . . it's nonsense words which rhyme with real words. And he finds that very amusing. And then another I selected was just several stories that lend themselves to acting out and he can pretend to be one of the three little pigs or the wolf or one of the three bears. [Snider reading to children] Now the third little pig built himself a house of bricks. It took him much longer to build than a straw house or a house of sticks. Look who's peeking in the window. [child speaks]The Big Bad Wolf! [Snider resumes] The big bad wolf and he knocked at the door and he said [children speaking along] Little Pig, Little Pig

Let me come in. No, No, not by the hair on my chinny chin chin. Said the third little pig. [Children] I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blower your house down. [child blows] [Snider]But it didn't do any good because look the wolf is huffing and puffing but the brick house stayed right there. Mitrakos][ Since I'm doing finger plays I went to the library also and picked out several books that the children I think would enjoy. Finger plays are really good for building just the dexterities in your fingers and they really enjoy using their whole bodies as a game and one of them is his hand-hand fingers-thumb and they use that as coordination with their fingers and just drumming on drums and really enjoying themselves

with that and then some of the other books have a lot of finger plays to do for holidays for -- to act out like trains and buses and just different things like that and then just some that you find you can make up and a child can just make up a tune and do whatever they, whatever they want. That's the best part of doing finger plays. [Mitrakos reading to children] One thumb, let's see those thumbs. One thumb drumming on a drum. (female reading from a book) One hand -- See hand, David? -- drumming on a drum. Dum diddi dum, dum dum dum. Rings on fingers, rings on thumbs drum, drum, drum, drum, drum, drum. Monkeys drum, monkeys hummm. Drum, hum, drum. Hand picks apples

Come on, let's pick an apple. Hand picks plum. Dum diddi dum dum dum dum dum. [Child speaks] These are good apples. [Adult resumes reading] Monkeys come, monkeys go. Hands with handkerchiefs blow blow blow. Hello, Jack.... [voice fades] In the books for the children to act once I start off with nursery rhymes say like Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. They only have to do one thing and that's fall off. Not maybe a good start. Then to build up with nursery rhymes that have a little more action in them like Little Miss Muffet can be stirring and eating and she gets scared she runs away and then build up to one of the story books that we have at home. It's called "Just me" and he walks around like the different animals on their farm. He knows he can't fly like a bird but he can try to walk like a duck. And at the end of the book he has to run just like me so that he can get to his daddy. And

the children can do each of the walks as the animal does and it has pictures of the little boy imitating the animals so they can even look at the little boy and imitate or look at the animal. [Fleckenstien reading a book] I can't fly like a bird but I can walk like a horse. Let me see how you do it. So Flora opened her eyes and walked a few steps and I walked just like her and let's see you walk and neigh like a horse just right here close. Don't go too far away How's a horsie go? [child tries to sound like a horse] Good, okay now come on back. [child giggles] Oh, good. Okay, let's let's just do a couple of more. Over by the haystack I met a frog. He was just keeping cool in the shade. Frog, I said, I can't fly like a bird but I could hop like a rabbit and I can climb like a squirrel. And leap like a frog, too. Let me see how you do it.

So frog leaped away and I leaped just like him. Good, Danny. That's how a froggie goes. He leaps real long. Oh good reebit reebit [child and Fleckenstien together] [Fleckenstien] Good, come back frogs. [Ed Sardella] There are more than 80 groups of parents and preschool children meeting every two weeks in the elementary school buildings or community centers throughout Denver. Join the parent in preschool program operated by Emily Griffith Opportunity School. Get an early start for your boy or girl and, as a parent, increase your knowledge of the needs of the growing child, family relationships and management aspects of child rearing. For more information call Steel School 7-4-4- 3 6-7-4. Each week, Prime Time contributes some ideas on how parents can improve their children's reading skills. On this program reading specialists Phylliss Adams from the Denver University reading department and Nick

Glaser from the University of Northern Colorado join superintendent of schools Dr. Brzeinski in a discussion about developing good readers. [Dr. Joseph E. Brzeinski] Prime Time has been focusing on the role that the school, the parents, the community plays in the building of reading skills, the love of reading. We're extremely fortunate to have with us two of the region's outstanding authorities in this field. Dr. Phylliss Adams, professor of education at the University of Denver, and a member of the board of directors of the International Reading Association and Dr. Nick Glaser, professor of elementary education and of reading from the University of Northern Colorado. Welcome. What do you see from your vantage point as the role of parents in building reading skills? [Phylliss Adams] Let me start on that. One, the statement's often made that parents are the most important teachers and the first and I truly believe this so I see their role as one of a home school

partnership. You mentioned a love of reading. Certainly creating and stimulating interest in reading and reading materials is one great aspect that a parent can engage in. A second is laying the language foundations that a student needs for success in reading, for understanding reading, appreciating. And that can be utilized in terms of the home environment, all the daily activities. And then third, I guess, I would have to say is reinforcing and re-enhancing -- not duplicating but enhancing the skills as they are developed in school. What other kinds of things might you like to add, Nick? [Nick Glaser] Well I would just like to elaborate a little bit on some of the things you've said. I would agree that the parent certainly is the first teacher and I think a good deal of that teaching comes through modeling. And I'd like to emphasize here that we're talking about both mother and father modeling because too many times I feel that

mother gets the role, especially with the young ones, of having to be the one who does the reading to the youngster at night before bed or whenever they do that. By modeling, however I would hope that the parents would also let the youngsters see them read newspapers, make sure that they had magazines in the home, establish some kind of a library in the home for youngsters and I don't mean some formal kind of an oak bookcase or something like that but someplace where the kids know that there are books that they can read. And then of course the parent should read to the children. (Phylliss Adams) I frequently suggest to parents that they actually establish silent reading time or an oral time in the home maybe 10 minutes a day in which everyone has an opportunity to read. And I think very often parents of young children take time to either read with or to the youngster. But I often see this stopping when the youngster gets to the

point where they can read independent like. So I would certainly urge that there continue to be sharing of reading at all ages whether it be taking turns reading material aloud or sitting down and quietly reading their own book their own materials. It seems to me that this is a very important aspect. So you continue this regardless of whether you have a five year old or a secondary student. (Nick Glaser) Yes, I would agree with that. I think the secondary student is often forgotten and they do like to have time to read. I think family sharing of special books that have been read among the children and with the parents is an exceptionally good way to spend some time. Time is certainly very important. There have been some studies that have indicated that the amount of time spent with youngsters is extremely limited when it comes to meaningful communication. And I

think that in this we should indicate that the sharing listening, parents listening to kids share after they've read is certainly important because it does increase their communication skills and build their language as you've indicated. (Phylliss Adams) An additional point that I would like to make is that there are so many opportunities in the home, in the community for using reading and we're all very busy people and we think "Do we have that 10 minutes or 15 minutes to devote totally?" but utilizing all the opportunities such as reading recipes, going grocery shopping, you're sitting in a doctor's office and so you make up a game. And you talk about the objects and the colors; all those numerous opportunities that we frequently overlook plus it really indicates how reading is very functional in use. And this assists those working parents or a parent who feels that they have very little time to devote specifically to reading.

[Dr. Brzeinski] Thank you very much for these words, for these ideas. I'd like to reinforce something that you said because as a father, some of the most pleasurable times we had was sitting around the evening reading to our children before the bed hour. Thank you again. (Ed Sardella resumes) In our next program, Prime Time focuses on American Education Week. Superintendent Joseph Brzeinski will be interviewing Major General Titus Hall from Lowry Air Force Base, Rex Jennings president of the Denver Chamber of Commerce and the Honorable William McNichols, mayor of the city and county of Denver. It will also be a National Children's Book Week. And Jane Yolen, popular author of more than 60 books, will comment on this year's theme, Any Time, Any Place, Any Book. Prime Time means words, words to read, to understand, to speak and to write. Set aside some time to help your child win with word power. Until next week, I'm Ed Sardella for Prime Time.