1. VIDEO HAS UNIQUE ABILITIES TO MATCH LETTERS AND WORDS WITH SOUNDS

Video and computer animation are capable of highlighting sight words, syllables, and/or letters as they are being spoken more accurately (and therefore, more effectively) than a live teacher (whose fingers are too large to point to single letters at a time, and whose pointers are too small to indicate full syllables).

2. VIDEO CAN REPEAT WITHOUT BOREDOM AND IN SHORT TIME FRAMES

More than any other communication tool, video has an ability to include many repetitions in a very short time. So a program like Between the Lions can model four or five different sounding out strategies thirty times in five minutes. Repetition on video aids memory, provides much needed reinforcement, and does it in less time than a live teacher could. That saves teachers precious class time needed for individual instruction or coaching, which video can’t do.

3. VIDEO TELLS STORIES IN EASY-TO-UNDERSTANDING WAYS

Previewing aids comprehension, especially for remedial readers. Sometimes teachers do this by talking about the key features of a story or a book before asking students to read it. Or they review important vocabulary so the words won’t look so strange when a student encounters them in a text. Video can also be used to help preview. If a student can follow the story on video first, it makes reading the text easier. And when reading is easier, the reader is likely to have more success when reading. More success leads to more reading, and more reading provides the practice needed to become a better reader.

4. VIDEO ATTRACTS STUDENTS TO BOOKS

The notion that if you show a student a video or film they won’t read the text only holds true when students are being asked to read things that don’t really interest them. When a film or TV show is popular, the sales of the book version of that film skyrocket. When Reading Rainbow features a book, kids flock to libraries to borrow that book, even reluctant readers.

5. NARRATIVE VIDEO PROVIDES PRACTICE OPPORTUNITIES

Retelling stories, making up endings, identifying beginning/middle/end or more complex sequencing all help build emergent literacy skills. Students who can acquire these skills using video, a “text” which they enjoy and with which they feel comfortable, will be able to apply these skills to printed text with more confidence.

6. VIDEO PROVIDES A BRIDGE BETWEEN PARENT AND CHILD

Low literacy parents sometimes feel that they can’t contribute to their child’s emergent literacy skills, but they feel comfortable with TV. By teaching them how to use video to help their children practice emergent literacy skills (such as those described in #5), we provide a way for them to help build their children’s skills that is both genuine and productive. That helps parents feel important as teachers as it helps children gain literacy skills.

7. VIDEO BUILDS CONFIDENCE AS IT HELPS READERS IDENTIFY LITERARY CONCEPTS

Kids who can tell you what their favorite superhero would or wouldn’t do in a given situation understand the concept of character. To a child who knows they have already mastered the concept, it seems much less daunting to apply the concept to print than a child who thinks they don’t even get the idea. Other literary features that viewers learn easily from video include setting and point of view.

8. VIDEO CAN MODEL READING

By showing people reading, video can provide a diversity of role models. That’s especially important for children who don’t see people reading at home. In addition to showing ordinary people reading, video can show students’ heroes reading. It can also show how and when reading is used in the context of real, daily routines.

9. VIDEO’S IMAGE-BASED COMMUNICATION PROVIDES ACCESS FOR NON-ENGLISH SPEAKERS

Because it uses visuals, and because many visuals can be understood even when one doesn’t understand the accompanying dialogue, video can be an excellent way to help ESL speakers understand stories. They can then speak about those stories with their children and, ultimately, have an easier time learning to read the stories in English.

Furthermore, as educator Paulo Friere pointed out, true literacy requires more than decoding skills. It also requires an understanding of the culture that produced the text. After all, you may be able to decode a word, but if you have no idea what the word means or to what it refers, you don’t have comprehension, which means you don’t have literacy. It is unrealistic to expect people with limited literacy skills to learn about unfamiliar cultures from text. For them, video can play an important role in providing the knowledge that is a prerequisite to understanding the texts they are learning how to decode.

10. VIDEO CAN EXPAND VOCABULARY

Although standard children’s TV fare uses a very limited range of words and can actually inhibit vocabulary development, well-designed educational programs (like the ones in PBS’ Ready to Learn schedule) are specifically designed to use language that viewers can understand while introducing just enough new words to challenge the learner and help increase their verbal repertoire.

11. VIDEO CAN PROVIDE OPPORTUNITIES TO HEAR LANGUAGE FROM MULTIPLE SPEAKERS

Before children can read words, they must hear them. In some homes, conversation is limited or those who engage in conversation have limited verbal skills. Video can provide complex conversations that children listen in on. And parent training can help parents learn to how to engage children in conversations based on the TV programs they enjoy.

12. VIDEO HAS CLOSED CAPTIONING

Research suggests that seeing words on screen can aid some people in acquiring reading skills. Even though closed captioning was invented to give people with hearing limitations access to what’s on screen, it can also help hearing people associate printed text with the spoken word, thereby improving their reading skills.

13. VIDEO USES MUSIC

An important part of gaining phonemic awareness is being able to hear the difference between words and sounds. Singing simple rhymes can help build that ability. Many educational children’s television series include such music, providing an opportunity to sing along. Because radio rarely plays children’s music, CD’s are expensive and many parents don’t remember (or never knew) songs from their preschool years, television can sometimes be the only affordable source of sing along opportunities at home.

14. VIDEO PROVIDES AN OPPORTUNITY TO INTEGRATE MEDIA LITERACY

We live in a media-saturated world where most people get the majority of their information from sources that combine text with pictures and, increasingly, sound. In that world, being able to read, write, and analyze print isn’t enough to make a person literate. By modeling the use of television as a valuable resource when viewed selectively, and demonstrating how to view actively, parents and educators who used TV to support print literacy are simultaneously helping children acquire some important media literacy skills.

15. PEOPLE LIKE IT!

People learn best when they are happy, and they are inspired to read more when they get pleasure from the reading experience. By using video, which kids love, to introduce or reinforce print literacy skills, we can extend the enjoyment of the viewing experience to reading.

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Faith Rogow, Ph.D.
Insighters Educational Consulting
"Helping people learn from media and one another"

A PBS STUDY says that Video in the Classroom…

A study from The Corporation for Public Broadcasting reports that video in the classroom…

VALUE OF VIDEO IN THE LEARNING PROCESS

This is where technology-based approaches incorporating video and audio (in other words, multimedia) allow education and, in effect, learning to reach more students and provide more opportunities for neural development and learning.

James M. Marshall, Ph.D.
San Diego State University, May 2002
Learning with Technology

As the old cliché has it, ‘an image is worth a thousand words’. Moving images add authenticity and reality to the learning context, and can bring the course content alive. The moving image has long been a feature of education, from the earliest magic lanterns over a century ago to the latest web streaming technologies.

Sally Thornhill, Mireia Asensio, Clive Young, Editors / Video Streaming: A Guide for Educational Development

Video, among other new technologies, offers education a challenge to rethink much of its methods and content, helping to tilt the balance away from teacher-centered instruction towards learner-centered study.

R. Moss / Video: The Educational Challenge

R. Moss felt that “video, among other new technologies, offers education a challenge to rethink much of its methods and content, helping to tilt the balance away from teacher-centered instruction towards learner-centered study”. Video indeed “may offer inspiration to a minority because its ability to represent and stimulate ideas not readily expressed in written form”. This could include what we would now term ‘lifelong learners’ and “open up scholarship to wider, more dispersed and very different students that we have experienced before”. Visually rich resources might perhaps bring more access, control and choice to the learning materials.

Sally Thornhill, Mireia Asensio, Clive Young, Editors / Video Streaming: A Guide for Educational Development

It is not only the visible explicitly meaning of the moving image themselves that are important. Academic developers often refer to the motivational aspects of video; it seems to have an emotional resonance to the senses. Hempe (1999) refers to the strengths of video as visual demonstration, dramatization, presenting visual evidence and making an emotional appeal. Images always carry hidden or semi-hidden messages such as narrative, emotion, authority, authenticity and symbolism. These may be more important and engaging than the explicit visual message itself.

Sally Thornhill, Mireia Asensio, Clive Young, Editors / Video Streaming: A Guide for Educational Development

Research studies have suggested that the average adult can “listen with understanding” for approximately 90 minutes, and “listen with retention” for approximately 20 minutes. The length of the latter observation varies somewhat with the intelligence level of the individual. Generally, the lower the intelligence level, the shorter is the “listen with retention” period. Pike (1994) suggests the 90/20/8 rule: “No module we teach ever runs more than ninety minutes, and we try to find a way to involve people in the content every eight minutes.

Application of Adult Learning: Concepts to Training / National Weather Service Training Center

The basic driver of the need for engagement relates to attention span. The average adult has an attention span of five to seven minutes or less, depending on your definition.

Tony Jeary
Lecture Out – Engagement In
Volume 32, January 7, 2003