TELEVISION VERSUS READING

Adapted From THE READ-ALOUD HANDBOOK

 by Jim Trelease, Penguin Books, 1995.

1. Television is the direct opposite of reading. TV shows break its programs into eight-minute segments (shorter for shows like Sesame Street), requiring and fostering short attention spans. Reading, on the other hand, requires and encourages longer attention spans. Good children's books are written to hold children's attention, not interrupt it. Television is relentless; no time is allowed to ponder characters' thoughts or to recall their words because the dialogue and images move too quickly. Books, however, encourage the reader to move at his own pace as opposed to that of the director or sponsor. The reader can stop to ponder the character's next move, the feathers in his hat, or the meaning of a sentence. Having done so, he can resume where he left off without having missed any part of the story. 

2. For young children television is an antisocial experience, while reading is a social experience. A three-year-old sits passively in front of the screen, oblivious to what is going on around him or her. Conversation during the program is seldom if ever encouraged by the child or by the parents. On the other hand, the three-year-old with a book must be read to by another person - parent, sibling, or grandparent. The child is a participant as well as a receiver when he engages in discussion during and after the story.

3. Television deprives the child of his most important learning tool: questions. Children learn the most by questioning. The time a child sits infront of a TV, he or she can neither ask a question nor receive an answer.

4. Television interrupts the child's most important language lesson: family conversation. Children seldom engage in little or no conversation while watching TV.

5. Much of young children's television viewing is mindless watching, requiring little or no thinking. With more than 100 cable channels to chose from one would expect today's young adults to be among the most informed citizens in our history. They are not, unless this is discussed and shared with an adult, or what they are watching is a meaningful experience.

6. Television stifles the imagination. Studies have shown that children hearing a story produced more imaginative responses than those seeing the same story on film.

7. Television overpowers and desensitizes a child's sense of sympathy for suffering. Extensive research in the past twenty years clearly shows that television bombardment of the child with continual acts of violence makes the child insensitive to violence and its victims. Any classroom teacher or pediatrician will tell you of the connection between children's viewing of violent films and classroom behavior.

The purpose of television is this:	The purpose of a book is this:
·        Information - advertising, news, sports ·        Identity - people to emulate and things to identify with ·        Social Interaction - as a basis for conversation or substituted for companionship to ease sense of isolation ·        Entertainment - escape, relaxation	·        Information - story, how-to ·        Identity - to provide characters or a voice to identify with, to be identified with an author or book ·        Social Interaction - to create a basis for discussion and/or conversation between you and others ·        Entertainment - interacts with reader's imagination