Media and Young Children’s Learning

Media and Young Children’s Learning

Television has brought great changes to the way many children spend their leisure time. Children shows such as Sesame Street, Barney & Friends, and The Electric Company are examples of media that teach children literacy, numeracy, and problem solving. Even though young children do not learn much from watching videos, if the content is age appropriate, can television viewing harm them? There are different perspectives to this question and parents today want to know the answer. In our society today, it is proven that young children who watch television have advantages in learning and is beneficial towards their development as an adult.

One approach, which comes from social development and best relates to the parent question, is intelligence. Several psychologists in the 1970s and 1980s suggested that a child’s intelligence is based on how well they understand the television shows that they were watching. The idea was that children were to watch shows such as Sesame Street and see whether they were able to retain all of the information they were learning. This is known as Howard Gardner’s 
“Theory of Multiple Intelligences” (Gardner, 1983). Intelligence is not just a mental speed, but is a way of seeing if a child can learn quite a lot of useful things from the shows that they are watching or can hinder them by making them addicted to television. In summary, Howard Gardner’s “Theory of Multiple Intelligences” shows the different cognitive processes such as language abilities and problem solving. The theory shows promise in developing children who do not fit in the mold or do not excel in these areas of learning. Television shows such as Sesame Street can use children’s types of intelligences to assist in planning and teaching in areas in which they are not as gifted.

Research findings that relate to Howard Gardner’s “Theory of Multiple Intelligences” comes from the television show Sesame Street. Sesame Street is an American children’s television program known for its combination of Muppets, animation, humor, and cultural references. The television show captivates the audience with scenes regarding literacy, numeracy, and problem solving. Children who watch these television shows understand the significance of the scenes and prepares them for school. There are certain characters in Sesame Street that are significant in childhood learning. Characters such as Big Bird and The Count help children with their cognitive and symbolic processes. Big Bird is an example of a cognitive process of teaching. He is curious about a lot of things and asks many questions, which can teach the audience as he is learning himself. In Episode 4512 of Sesame Street, the writer Sonia Manzano creates an episode that teaches children the lesson of sharing. Big Bird loses his nest and life lessons are learned all throughout the episode. Big Bird

...