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10th October 2018
Ms Leisa Pickard
Director, Good Start Learning
Dunkley Street
RUTHERFORD NSW 2320
Dear Ms Pickard,
Courtney Buxton
University Drive
CALLAGHAN
NSW 2308
As requested, I am writing to give an evidence-based recommendation on whether parents should let their children watch educational programs to foster their language development. I have evaluated various education psychology theories and my recommendation is for parents to allow children to watch educational programs. This moderated activity allows for a varied form of information intake, encouraging language development and growth. Educational programs can be defined as learning television which involves the use of television as a tool in the field of sensory education. Some examples include ‘Sesame Street’ and ‘Dora the Explorer’. Educational programs provide children with enormous opportunities, allowing them to undertake new experiences, nurture academic knowledge and foster social skills.
Within education psychology theories, there is an emphasis on the effects of various learning styles in classrooms. Learning styles refer to the complex way individuals receive information. Specifically, the varied use of VAK (Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic) preferences can allow the children to effectively receive, process, and in-turn, retrieve information. Majority of interactive educational programs teach children educational lessons, such as languages, logic, mathematics etc, with the best modality for the lesson in mind, and often delivers knowledge using multiple VAK preferences.
Furthermore, educational programs try to endorse a social interaction between the child and the educational program’s characters by establishing direct eye-contact between the characters and the child. This direct eye-contact and the use of questions and pauses, allowing time for the children’s responses, encourages this social element of learning and language development. Here, these responses are encouraging the positive growth of speech and thought, as well as the development of language. Children are more likely to understand the content of an educational program when they respond to a character’s interactive questions. It is recommended that educators watch educational programs with the children, taking time to provide feedback to their responses. For feedback to be effective to the children’s cognitive development, it is important that educators and parents actively participate with the child’s viewing, avoiding use of mobile phones and other stimuli which is deemed a distraction. Also, through the use of positive feedback, it is evident that educators are exposing children to the psychological concept of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is a type of learning whereby behaviour is strengthened if followed by reinforcement such a reward. Watching education programs and receiving feedback on responses gives children the opportunity to further grow and develop from sensory learning.
According to the well-researched Information Processing Model, humans take in information via stimuli and organises this information in the form of working and long-term memory and then this information can be later retrieved. This model dictates how we process information and develop perception; detecting stimuli and assigning meaning to it. Here, sensory learning through the use of educational programs allow early-childhood children to enhance information processes for the future. This also allows children to use perception, receiving stimuli from the educational programs and assigning meaning in working and, due to repetition, eventually long-term memory. Children’s television producers employ a number of techniques to improve learning from educational programs and support the transfer of knowledge to real life scenarios. It is recommended that educators fulfil children’s requests to repeatedly watch educational programs, as they learn better from being recurrently exposed to the same thing. Repetition within educational programs can enhance children’s learning, strength memory and establish a successful transfer of the information to the real world.
In conclusion, it is recommended that parents and early-childhood educators watch educational programs with children. Educational programs enable children to receive information via varied stimuli. Interactivity via forms of feedback and repetition allow children to effectively process information and develop knowledge and memory. Education programs also allow children to develop and transfer this information to the real world, hence strengthening language and thought. Educational programs have been deemed an effective educational tool and, according to the Economic and Social Research Council, “after watching an educational program, toddlers can learn to count to five and learn to read a simple map presented on the show.”
Kind regards,
Courtney Buxton
Taylor, G. (2015). Why watching TV can actually be good for toddlers. [online] Washington Post. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/03/12/why-watching-tv-can-actually-be-good-for-toddlers/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.06156a2a000b.
This article explore both the negative and positives to children aged between 0 – 2 years old watching television. For the negative, it quotes the American Academy of Pediatrics, which discourage television watching for children under the age of 2. However, for my letter, I decided to focus on the positive part of this particle, as this was my recommendation. The article dictates how television for children, and the repetition of key elements on the screen can significantly enhance stimuli intake, memory and hence information recall. It also emphasises the significance of interaction with the television program. It also dictates that the children’s television program producers employ a number of techniques to encourage and support learning and knowledge transfer to the real world. The feedback received from both the television program and from attentive parents/caregiver, such as ‘good job’ and ‘that’s right’, supports the development and learning from the education program. This article, helpful for both parents/caregivers and early childhood centres, gave me a significant insight into the benefits of television programs, allowing me to articulate and provide a well-researched recommendation.
CrashCourse. (2014). How to Train a Brain – Crash Course Psychology #11 [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG2SwE_6uVM&t=354s
This educational video informs about the psychological concept of conditioning. Specifically, I have referenced their operant conditioning research within my recommendation letter. In the video, operant conditioning is describing as associating behaviour with consequences. The premise of this psychological theory is that behaviour increases when followed by reinforcement, which in the case of my recommendation, is positive feedback, however they decrease when followed by a punishment. This video allowed me to further support my recommendation, which entailed parents/caregivers and early-childhood centres providing feedback to the child for correct answers, executing the theory of operant condition.
Mindtools Content Team. (2018). VAK Learning Styles Understanding How Team Members Learn. Retrieved from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/vak-learning-styles.htm
This research website provides information about VAK learning styles. The VAK learning styles is a model developed by psychologist to classify the most common ways that people learn. According to the model, the most common modalities of learning includes visual, auditory and kinaesthetic. The visual learning style is where a visual-dominant learner absorbs and retains information better when it is presented in, for example, pictures, diagrams and charts. The auditory learning style is where a sudatory-dominant learner prefers listening to what is being presented. The kinaesthetic learning style is where a kinaesthetic-dominant learner prefers a physical experience. A comprehensive understanding of these preferences can allow television program producers to develop educational programs with the best VAK style in mind for the lesson. This website gave me an insight into the extent at which VAK can play a role in educational programs, which for children, mostly is a combination of all three.