Because the literacy rate for kids in the country is important for them to become successful adults, The Electric Company is produced to help build the foundation of vocabulary for its viewers.
Building a Literacy Foundation
Karen Fowler, executive producer of The Electric Company, told the Television Critics Association Press Tour attendees that “the literacy rates in this country for six- to nine-year-olds, our specific target audience, are really alarming. A third of kids in fourth grade are not reading on point, at their level, and the statistics show that if you are not reading on level by fourth grade, only one in ten kids will be become literate adults.”
She added, “I can't imagine not being a literate adult and being able to be proficient in this world without those skill sets. So we brought the show back. We are number one on PBS KIDS GO! and we are really excited about that. And as of September 7th, we will be on every day. We started out as a once-a-week show. Now, we will be on every [week] day [beginning] September 7th, which we are really excited about because, as a nonprofit media education company as Sesame Workshop, our mission is to give to as many kids as possible.”
Morgan Freeman was a regular in the original series which aired from 1971-1977, and the producers of the new series would be proud and happy to have him return. “We've had a lot of incredible people come to play with us this year in our first season of 35 episodes, which is incredibly gratifying.” Jimmy Fallon is just one of the celebrities that make an appearance on the show.
Emphasizing Vocabulary and Word Comprehension
The original series was more of a variety show focusing on grammar and phonics. The new series still emphasizes vocabulary, however the format is a bit different. “New research has shown children from lower-income homes walk into kindergarten having … fewer words [in their vocabulary] than their counterparts. So the vocabulary [and comprehension is] really critical for this new Electric Company,” explains Fowler.
Scott Cameron, director of education and research for Sesame Workshop adds, “[kids] can learn all of the phonics principles, but if they don't know what words mean, then at a certain point in the sentence with a paragraph, they are going to get discouraged, and they are going to stop reading. And that's what happens with a lot of six, seven, and eight-year-olds who [were] on track but somehow fell off track.”
Knowing the meaning of a word is just as important as being able to read the word. “We have a lot of conversations about vocabulary,” explains Cameron, “because there's no real list out there that shows you one of the 200 most important words for a second grader to know because every second grader is different. What we do is we look a lot at the kinds of texts that second and third and fourth graders are reading, nonfiction/fiction texts, and we look at the words that we know are most likely to appear in those texts.”
The Electric Company is produced to work in conjunction with schooling. As Fowler clarifies, “And the other thing we do, like all things at Sesame Workshop, we work with educators around the country from the top universities to ensure that our curriculum is vetted.”
The first season of 35 episodes begins September 7 and will repeat after seven weeks.
Source: The writer is a member of the Television Critics Association and attended the summer 2009 Press Tour.
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