Sesame Street Impact On Literacy

Sesame Street and the Impact on Literacy For most Americans, watching television is a part of everyday life. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, Americans spend more than 5 hours everyday watching television (Bls.gov, 2015). When Sesame Street first appeared on television in 1969, there were more than 12 million children in the United States. Many of those children “did not attend any form of school” (Ball et al. pg.1 para.1). In order to accommodate the delay in public education for all students, private and public agencies created the Children’s Television Workshop. The goal of the Children’s Television Workshop was to “entertain children and foster their intellectual and cultural development” (Ball et al. p. 2 para.1). Agencies decided to create a television show for the following reasons: Firstly, Television was accessible to many Americans. Secondly, children learn from television. This is evident when children sing jingles from commercials, or can recognize words they see on television. The Children’s Television Workshop launched in 1968 and began setting instructional goals for it’s educational program entitled “Sesame Street.”
The results of many studies on Sesame Street, has proven that Sesame Street was a huge intervention at a low cost. According to Richard Perez-Pena and Motoko Rich, “with a growing body of research pointing to the importance of early child development on later academic and social progress…Preschool is having its moment” (New York Times, 2014). Early childhood education works and provides better education at earlier ages. Philip B. Levine calls Sesame Street the first MOOC- Massive Open Online Course (youtube.com). Sesame Street had an effect at earlier ages. The study found that it is possible for students to benefit from electronically delivered educational content, even in