3 thoughts on “FriendFeed: Newsweek: How Sesame …”
Jazz
Its a shame that the ratings for Sesame Street are beginning to fade at a time when its potential impact is greatest. As the Loys no doubt know, a toddler that likes a particular show will want to see it again and again, which is made easy by modern marvels like Tivo and DVR.
Watching the Count several times in a row may just give a toddler the repetition necessary to master counting to ten.
Watching Dora several times in a row pretty much just leaves a parent wishing they could get “Backpack, backpack!” out of their head :).
Brendan Loy
Heh.
Loyette has definitely incorporated concepts from both shows into her rapidly developing vocabulary. One of them is indeed “backpack” — she will excitedly point at my backpack, or my shoudler bag for work, or Becky’s diaper bag, and say “BACKPACK!!” (Well… “bah-pah,” really.) She also has a little bit of trouble pronouncing the letter W, so she calls it “Dora.” 🙂
As for Sesame Street, I do suspect it has played in a role in how well & quickly she has learned her letters (she knows all of them), and how to count to 5. (Just a week ago, I would have said “count to 3” … by next week, maybe it’ll be 10. These things change fast.) Although, we also count with her all the time (count the buttons on daddy’s shirt, count the items of food in the Very Hungry Caterpillar, etc.), and she has a ton of A-B-C books that she adores, and an electronic magnetic toy that sings whatever letter magnet you place on it, and floating foam letters & numbers in the bathtub. So it’s not just Sesame Street. But it certainly hasn’t hurt.
She’s also very attached to the characters on both shows. Even when Sesame Street (or “fi-fi,” as she calls the show, for some unknown reason) and Dora haven’t been on for hours — Becky tries to limit TV to no more than an hour per day — Loyette will often say, as I’m carrying up to bed for the night, some combination of: “Bye-bye Mommy! Bye-bye Baby! Bye-bye Elmo! Bye-bye Dora! Bye-bye Big Bird!” Well… “Elmo” is more like “eh-mo,” and “Big Bird” is “bee bah,” but her intent is clear.
Of course, she also frequently says “bye-bye” to various inanimate objects — couch, plate, banana (“nana”), her cow-shaped chair (“bye-bye cow” often comes right after Mommy and Baby), etc. — so maybe the shows aren’t all THAT unique. 🙂
Jazz
Have to laugh at the plethora of intellectual stimulation – there’s education all around. Could partially explain why teenagers are habitually disorganized, or dorm rooms often have educational stimuli scattered hither and yon. We may be subconsciously carrying forward the successful experience of childhood, when we learned a lot, wherever we were.
Regarding the DVR and Sesame Street: the DVR makes it easy to replay segments that have the greatest learning value. When our daughter asks “Again?” (seemingly endlessly), we typically cave if the segment is the count, or Elmo/Mr. Noodle introducing a concept, or something like that.
If it’s something like Gordon golfing, we’ll usually try to talk her out of it :).
Its a shame that the ratings for Sesame Street are beginning to fade at a time when its potential impact is greatest. As the Loys no doubt know, a toddler that likes a particular show will want to see it again and again, which is made easy by modern marvels like Tivo and DVR.
Watching the Count several times in a row may just give a toddler the repetition necessary to master counting to ten.
Watching Dora several times in a row pretty much just leaves a parent wishing they could get “Backpack, backpack!” out of their head :).
Heh.
Loyette has definitely incorporated concepts from both shows into her rapidly developing vocabulary. One of them is indeed “backpack” — she will excitedly point at my backpack, or my shoudler bag for work, or Becky’s diaper bag, and say “BACKPACK!!” (Well… “bah-pah,” really.) She also has a little bit of trouble pronouncing the letter W, so she calls it “Dora.” 🙂
As for Sesame Street, I do suspect it has played in a role in how well & quickly she has learned her letters (she knows all of them), and how to count to 5. (Just a week ago, I would have said “count to 3” … by next week, maybe it’ll be 10. These things change fast.) Although, we also count with her all the time (count the buttons on daddy’s shirt, count the items of food in the Very Hungry Caterpillar, etc.), and she has a ton of A-B-C books that she adores, and an electronic magnetic toy that sings whatever letter magnet you place on it, and floating foam letters & numbers in the bathtub. So it’s not just Sesame Street. But it certainly hasn’t hurt.
She’s also very attached to the characters on both shows. Even when Sesame Street (or “fi-fi,” as she calls the show, for some unknown reason) and Dora haven’t been on for hours — Becky tries to limit TV to no more than an hour per day — Loyette will often say, as I’m carrying up to bed for the night, some combination of: “Bye-bye Mommy! Bye-bye Baby! Bye-bye Elmo! Bye-bye Dora! Bye-bye Big Bird!” Well… “Elmo” is more like “eh-mo,” and “Big Bird” is “bee bah,” but her intent is clear.
Of course, she also frequently says “bye-bye” to various inanimate objects — couch, plate, banana (“nana”), her cow-shaped chair (“bye-bye cow” often comes right after Mommy and Baby), etc. — so maybe the shows aren’t all THAT unique. 🙂
Have to laugh at the plethora of intellectual stimulation – there’s education all around. Could partially explain why teenagers are habitually disorganized, or dorm rooms often have educational stimuli scattered hither and yon. We may be subconsciously carrying forward the successful experience of childhood, when we learned a lot, wherever we were.
Regarding the DVR and Sesame Street: the DVR makes it easy to replay segments that have the greatest learning value. When our daughter asks “Again?” (seemingly endlessly), we typically cave if the segment is the count, or Elmo/Mr. Noodle introducing a concept, or something like that.
If it’s something like Gordon golfing, we’ll usually try to talk her out of it :).