Sesame Workshop is a product of Children’s Television Workshop. Programming includes Sesame Street and Electric Company. Created over 40 years ago, the Sesame Workshop’s main focus was to build a program that supported early literacy for low-income families. The Sesame Street program has extended beyond television to include DVDs, radio, books, magazines, and Internet. This successful environment has been developed through the constant surveying of teachers and parents; as well as, the involvement of many that work in the field of child development: artists, writers, child development specialist, and psychologists.
Sesame Street is broadcasted daily on the public television station PBS and has a run time of approximately 30 minutes. Segments include singing, dancing, vocabulary growth through the word of the day, and introduction of social skills through skits. A multicultural format is also used to encourage learning different languages, visually experience diversity in cultures, and establish respect for people’s differences. Sesame Street as an educational tool has been found that the approach used for early literacy “succeeds in improving cognitive skills, teaching respect and social skills, and promoting school readiness skills” (Sesame Workshop, 2010).
Since the Sesame Street program is available through public broadcasting and therefore available to any individual with access to a television set, the program is an inexpensive way to offer early literacy skills in a digital format.
Resources:
Sesame Workshop. (2010). Sesame Street. Retrieved from http://www.sesameworkshop.org/programs/sesame_street
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