In 2015, the University of Iowa analyzed the impact of educational television for toddlers and whether it was an effective way to promote literacy skills among the earliest learners.
The study observed nearly 200 preschoolers who were assigned to watch the PBS Kids program “Super Why!” and another educational science program and evaluated literacy skills before viewing, and after the first and second viewing, of 20 episodes over a two month period.
Researchers found children exposed to the PBS show outperformed their peers who were not, and “learning was most pronounced for letter knowledge and phonological and phonemic awareness skills,” the study said.
The original 2007 show was discontinued in 2016, but was recently rebooted Oct. 5 – amid concerns about national declines in literacy.
As parents read to children less, different stakeholders across the country, including hospitals and lawmakers, have been trying to find ways to help prepare children to read earlier.
Rooted in the science of reading and focused on early literacy, Sara DeWitt, senior vice president and general manager at PBS Kids, said she’s hopeful the “Super Why’s Comic Book Adventures” series is another effort that will reinforce phonemic awareness skills and letter recognition for young kids.
“This is built on the legacy and success of that original Emmy-nominated series, … [with] a lot of call-and-response and a lot of pauses for kids to engage,” DeWitt said. “It’s a really great medium for literacy in particular because you can use letter sounds and have kids and then have kids recognize the letter on screen.”
DeWitt spoke with The 74 about what’s new about the series, how it can help with early literacy and how parents can balance TV learning with physical books.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What’s different about the Super Why series this time around?
This one is all set in a comic book world, so it’s really taking the superhero aspect to another level. It’s the ‘Super Readers,’ with Super Y, Wonder Red, Alpha Pig and Princess Pesto and now we’ve added another character, Power Page. They go on these adventures in Super Reader Valley and with ‘Super You’ – which is where it draws in the kid who’s watching the show into the experience – are working against a group of super villains.
Super Why is really the building blocks of literacy and the actual core literacy pieces that complements other shows. It’s part of just a larger literacy focus here at PBS Kids.
The show is developed with the science of reading. How does that work? How is the science of reading, usually talked about in classroom settings, translated into a TV show setting?
We’re taking the science of reading and breaking it down into pieces to really pull kids into specific skills. This is a vibrant world where letters and words and sounds have a lot of power.
We use research to help kids think about sounds as being so powerful to help you navigate the world. Every episode is like a game.
You come across the ‘Wishing L,’ and it looks like a wishing well, but you’ve got to find words with the L sound in order to wish at this well. We have kids listen to those sounds and try to figure out the next step.
It’s really taking those building blocks and putting them into place. Alpha Pig focuses on alphabet knowledge, and so there’s a lot of moments where you’re seeing the full alphabet on screen and really talking through those letters and singing through them. There are lots of songs and there are moments where you’re putting letter sounds together because you need to blend them in order to achieve some kind of outcome.
Last year, I wrote a story about how some parents struggle to read to their children. Can a show like this help bridge a gap if a child isn’t getting as much time to sit down with a book?
[These shows] help get all of these ideas into the child’s environment. It introduces things like looking at an object and trying to figure out what letter it starts with and it can have an amplification effect in the household. These types of skills being represented in a show can give parents a great entry point into engaging in literacy with their kids and how to engage.You said a show like this can be an entry point for parents to know what to do with their kids, but what other resources would you recommend for parents to look into to help facility early literacy growth?
As you noted, parents don’t have a lot of time, and they often feel really stressed about doing what’s best for their kid. What we’re seen regularly [that’s effective] is really giving parents easy ways to engage, things that can be done with things around you, things that can fit into routines are the best ways to approach it.
Our literacy research shows that doing things like watching the show and then looking at objects around the house and trying to break down those sounds is really helpful. It’s something kids and parents can do together in the grocery store, on the bus, in the car going somewhere.
Point out a stop sign and ask them to identify the first letter while they’re sitting in traffic. Try to make all of these games come to life in the environment around them.
How can parents pair TV learning with physical books? How do you keep kids engaged with physical literature if TV can seem more engaging?
Well, we’ve also seen the opposite effect, that a TV show can get a child more interested in the books related to it.
We know how kids engage with a book has an effect if they’ve seen it on TV. That’s something that we have done for decades with Clifford and Arthur, and so many shows that are book-based bring these stories to life. Modeling reading in series can make it look fun to have a library card and to engage with a book. It can make it an exciting way to learn about the world, then read stories and get lost in them.
There’s something really deliberate happening in this round of Super Why’s Comic Book Adventures by setting it in a comic book world as a great gateway for kids into books.
There are more and more graphic novels out there for kids and this is a great way to get kids excited about getting into those book experiences.
Is there an ideal balance between TV learning time, app learning and physical books?
You need a mix of everything, that’s what the American Academy of Pediatrics would say. You want kids to be able to engage with things in a wide variety of ways. The hope is to provide lots of different entry points for kids to get into literacy.
There’s plenty of conversation about screen time for children. Are there any challenges associated with early literacy television, or is this a different type of screen time?
It’s really about the content itself.
I was here at PBS when we were doing the first Super Why, and the first experience of developing the show and developing the games that mimicked the show so carefully, and immediately seeing how well this helped kids really engage with the content, how much it opened up their brains to it.
They’re not only hearing and seeing it, but engaging in a story with it. That’s something media can bring to curriculum that can be really useful and helpful for a lot of kids.
It goes back to: Is the content and screen time coming from a trusted source? Is it research-based and centered around the developmental needs of a child?
How can parents better vet whether an app they’re using or a TV show their child is watching is helping with developmental skills?
It’s so hard for parents right now, we’re in such a wild moment when it comes to kids’ media. There’s so much coming at them and so many things saying they’re educational, [and researchers finding out] they really aren’t.
So certainly going to trusted sources of content, … teachers are great recommenders. Librarians are the unsung heroes in this area, they really know what is positive, what’s vetted and are paying attention to what’s happening in the kids’ landscape both digital and in books. Common Sense Media is a great resource for getting basic ratings, so you have a bit of an understanding going into it.
A lot of young people have resistance to reading because they associate it with school work and don’t think it’s enjoyable. How are you hoping starting this conversation earlier, getting kids excited about literacy earlier, will help these students when they enter the classroom?
There’s so much power in media to inspire kids to want to try something new or learn something new. There’s so many kids who write to us to say that they really wanted to study animals because the [shows] Wild Kratts or Dinosaur Train helped them understand how much they really loved paying attention to rocks and fossils.
We’re trying to get kids to discover that there are lots of things to be passionate about, and I think reading falls into that same kind of category. There is a magic to getting lost in a story, and kids will realize that when they’re watching a TV show and are so caught up with the characters.
We want those kids to see our characters and equally love engaging with storytelling in books. Modeling [through TV] can go a long way, where they can see our characters reading books, talking about the powers of books, talking about stories they love.
There can be a lot of power in how TV can drive [learning] to books.