One high school teacher uses captioned tapes of popular programs in his remedial reading class. He shows the first half of the programs with captions and audio and the second half with captions only. To learn the outcome of the story, students must read the captions. The teacher reports that reading skills have improved because of his techniques. Captioned television requires a minimum of introductory material.
Television is friendly and familiar to most children and adults.
Television can also play a key role bringing literature to life. The wide range of captioned programs makes it easy to select whichever programs appeal to your students. Your experience with different populations and your judgment will guide how you use captioned programs in your classroom but the following guidelines may be helpful. Preview the program, to become familiar with content, before using it in class. Choose key scenes for discussion of concepts and note opportunities to build vocabulary.