Subtitles are great, aren’t they? The only problem is, sometimes they miss the mark (cue the hilarity when the word displayed isn’t quite what the speaker intended). There’s been much talk lately of switching on television subtitles to boost children’s reading skills which is a great idea. Here at Crick, we are number one fans of the multi-sensory approach to literacy. All those layers – seeing the word, hearing it, seeing an associated picture cue – all work together to support children’s cognitive acquisition of phonics knowledge and sight-words.
So, let’s return to that little television subtitles snag … I’m hearing the words, seeing the text … but they don’t match. Confusion reigns! But don’t give up on that idea of seeing and hearing text to boost reading. It’s a feature which sits at the very heart of Clicker, and so important.
Any text in Clicker – whether that’s something that has been presented in a Clicker Book, or something children have written themselves in the Document – can be read aloud to the child by Clicker’s authentic (child voice) speech feedback. And not just that, it’s highlighted too as each word is read. So, we get that instant visual and aural reinforcement. Really simple – but hugely powerful to early or struggling readers. And especially fantastic if you are working with children new to English language. (See our New to English range available FREE on LearningGrids.)
