Browse Articles

May 2009

• Is TV Bad for Babies?

• Ways to Encourage Emergent Literacy

• Kindergarteners Don’t Play Enough

• Doctors Prescribe These Summer Reads

Is TV Bad for Babies?

by Kari Anderson

The jury is in. Television viewing by babies doesn’t help but doesn’t harm their language and motor skills. A recent study published in Pediatrics showed that TV viewing from birth to age 2 was not significantly associated with language and motor skills at age 3. The study was conducted by a group of researchers from Harvard Medical School.

Do you take this as good news or bad? Some will look at this report and say, “See? TV does not make children smarter! I knew it wasn’t good.” Others may say, “See? TV does not harm children. It’s perfectly fine.”

While the results may be ambivalent, the study does debunk the myth that TV helps infants learn. The authors write, “In one recent survey, 29 percent of a large random sample of parents indicated the most important reason their children under 2 years of age watch TV or DVD/videos is that they are educational and ‘good for the child’s brain.’ Almost 40 percent of parents of children under 6 years of age, in a nationally representative survey, thought TV viewing ‘mostly helps’ children’s learning.” This, however, is not the case.

The authors hypothesized that each additional hour of TV viewing before the age of 2 years would be associated with lower test scores at age 3. What they found was that test scores were much more likely to be affected by other factors, including the mother’s age, education, marital status, household income, birth weight, breastfeeding duration, race/ethnicity, English language use and sleep duration. When the results were adjusted for these other factors, the relationship between television viewing and test scores was insignificant.

So just how much television are babies watching? In this study of 872 children, researchers found the average daily TV viewing among infants to be 0.9 hours at 6 months of age, 1.2 hours at 1 year of age, and 1.4 hours at 2 years of age.

Unfortunately, content was not addressed. “Although only a few studies have been conducted, there is emerging evidence that content is an important mediator of the effects of TV on infants,” wrote the authors. While this may seem like a no-brainer, the authors cited some surprising studies, including one that found viewing violent TV/video content before age 3 doubled the likelihood of attention problems in childhood, and another that showed that viewing certain “educational” infant videos between 8 and 16 months of age was associated with significantly lower Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) scores.

Even though the study didn’t find infants’ TV viewing impacts their test scores at age 3, the authors still encouraged parents and caregivers to limit children’s exposure to TV in early childhood. The benefits, they say, “are multiple and include less exposure to violent media content, improved diet quality, lower risk of obesity, lower risk of attention problems, and improved sleep quality.”

If you sell children’s videos, you don’t have to feel guilty about it. On the other hand, there are many other wonderful products on your shelves that can keep children entertained while promoting creativity and active play. Encourage your customers to turn off the TV and find other ways to connect with their babies.

Ways to Encourage Emergent Literacy

by Kari Anderson

May is Get Caught Reading Month, a nationwide campaign to remind people of all ages how fun it is to read. The event is sponsored by the Association of American Publishers, and has won the support of celebrities as well as teachers and librarians. The website www.getcaughtreading.org lists interesting literacy facts like this one: “Children who have not developed some basic literacy skills by the time they enter school are three to four times more likely to drop out in later years.”

Even though children may not begin to read on their own until kindergarten or first grade, they’re soaking up literacy cues right from birth. Pediatricians strongly recommend daily reading to children from six months of age, and during routine check-ups, doctors prescribe reading activities. “Reading Is Doctor-Recommended” is a new campaign launched by the organizations Reach Out and Read and the Association of Booksellers for Children, and is intended to help educate parents about the importance of early literacy. (See the article here, “Doctors Prescribe These Summer Reads.”)

All of these national reading awareness initiatives promote the idea of “emergent literacy,” a concept introduced by a New Zealand researcher in 1966. It refers to how young children interact with books and writing materials before they can actually read and write.

Expose young children to a literacy-rich environment that includes daily reading, language play, experimentation with literacy materials, book-related talk and dramatic play. Here are some products you can use to facilitate emergent literacy in your classroom.

Books and more books

Reading aloud to children is the single most important intervention for developing their literacy skills, according to a study by the National Commission on Reading. Provide a selection of cloth and board books for babies, picture books, nursery rhyme collections, first readers and chapter books help encourage a love of reading.

Alphabet products

Letters are the building blocks of words. Alphabet trains, posters, magnetic letters and alphabet books help children take their first step in learning to read.

While it’s important for kids to learn their letters, children don’t necessarily have to be drilled on their ABCs. Use flashcards as a jumping-off point for a discussion on what’s pictured on the cards. Alphabet flashcards can help reinforce letter recognition, while those with simple pictures and a single word can help children learn to rapidly label images – an important skill in reading.

Sequencing games

Puzzles and games that require a child to put things in the correct order lay the groundwork for literacy. Simple two-piece puzzles that match a word with a corresponding picture can help with word recognition and labeling. Three-piece sequence puzzles help kids put things in the proper order.

Arts and crafts

It may seem like a stretch to say that playing with paints and construction paper can help build literacy skills, but the practice a child gets with a paintbrush, crayons, pencils, pens, scissors and paper helps build motor skills that will be necessary when learning to write. Stencils get children on the right writing track by giving them the exact pattern to follow for making letters.

Puppets and plush

Puppets, plush animals and dolls that resemble characters in books can extend a story for a child and encourage his love for reading. A puppet theater allows a child to recreate the drama from a book and retell the sequence of events from the story.

Rhymes

There are several genres of products that promote rhyming: books, CDs, games, flipcharts and flannel boards are just a few. Children are naturally attracted to rhymes, which teach them about word families. Rhyming also gives children phonological awareness, a skill necessary for reading and writing.

Kindergarteners Don’t Play Enough

from the Alliance for Childhood

Time for play in most public kindergartens appears to be dwindling, replaced by lengthy lessons and standardized testing, say the results of three new studies released by the Alliance for Childhood. From the 268 full-day kindergarten classrooms studied, classic play materials like blocks, sand-and-water tables and props for dramatic play had largely disappeared.

Researchers from UCLA, Long Island University and Sarah Lawrence College in New York conducted the studies. Their findings are documented in the report, “Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School,” which can be found at www.allianceforchildhood.org.

The research revealed that on a typical day, kindergartners in Los Angeles and New York City spend four to six times as long being instructed and tested in literacy and math (two to three hours per day) as in free play or “choice time” (30 minutes or less).

Standardized testing and preparation for tests are now a daily activity in most of the kindergartens studied.
In some kindergarten classrooms there is no playtime at all, says the report. Teachers say the curriculum does not incorporate play, there isn’t time for it, and many school administrators do not value it.

The authors of the report, Alliance for Childhood Directors Edward Miller and Joan Almon, say that the methods are not well grounded in research and do not yield long-term gains. In addition, the disappearance of kindergarten play can be viewed as part of a larger societal problem. “Play is one of the vital signs of health in children,” they write. “We do not know the long-term consequences of the loss of play in early childhood, but this has become a concern for pediatricians and psychologists.”

Meanwhile, notes their report, behavioral problems and school failure among kindergartners, especially for boys, are soaring.

The authors note that children in China and Japan, countries envied for their success in science, technology, engineering and math, enjoy a play-based, experiential approach to schooling until second grade. Finnish children similarly have a lengthy and playful childhood, not beginning formal schooling until age 7, yet Finland consistently gets the highest scores on international exams.

Synthesizing a range of recent national and international research, including the three new studies, “Crisis in the Kindergarten” calls for a refocusing of early education on well-designed, play-based approaches. 

Based in Maryland, the Alliance for Childhood promotes policies and practices that support children’s healthy development, love of learning and joy in living. For more information, visit www.allianceforchildhood.org.

Doctors Prescribe These Summer Reads

Reach Out and Read, a national nonprofit organization that promotes early literacy by making books a routine part of pediatric care, has released this summer book list for kids.

Board Books for 0- to 2-year-olds
“Run, Mouse, Run!” by Pelér Horácelk
“A Busy Year” by Leo Lionni
“A Color of His Own” by Leo Lionni
“Max at the Seashore” by Kate & Liz Pope
“Clip-Clop” by Nicole Semee

Picture Books for 3- to 5-year-olds
“Norman: A Goldfish Story” by Kelly Bennett
“The Kiss that Missed” by David Melling
“The Library” by Sarah Stewart
“How I Became a Pirate” by Melinda Long
“Shiver Me Letters: A Pirate ABC” by June Sobel

Beginning Readers Series for 5- to 8-year-olds
“Mr. Putter and Tabby Write the Book” by Cynthia Rylant
“Amazing Whales” by Sarah L. Thomson
“Starry Sky” by Kate Hayden
“I’m Going to New York to Visit the Lions!” by Harriet Zieffert
“Soccer Game” by Grace Maccarone

Chapter Book Series for 7- to 10-year-olds
“Secrets of Droon” by Tony Abbott
“Stanley, Flat Again!” by Jeff Brown
“Big Apple Barn” by Krisitin Earheart
“A-Z Mysteries” by Ron Roy
“Geronimo Stilton” by G. Stitton

Books for Fun for 8- to 12-year-olds
“The 13th Floor” by Sid Fleishman
“The Kid Who Became President” by Dan Gutman
“Find Buck McHenry” by Alfred Slote
“Harris and Me” by Gary Paulsen
“Shadow Spinner” by Susan Fletcher

Reach Out and Read was founded at Boston City Hospital (now Boston Medical Center) in 1989, through a collaboration between pediatricians, family physicians, nurses and early childhood educators. It serves 3.8 million children annually and distributes over 6 million books each year. To date, more than 52,000 pediatricians, nurses, residents and health professionals have been trained in the ROR model of early-literacy promotion.