Learning from Sesame Street
Thank you so much for inviting me to this convening. I'm glad to be representing “Sesame Street” and “Sesame Workshop.” For those of you who have not been counting, we are beginning our thirty-fifth season on “Sesame Street.” And these are original productions. I'm amazed at how many people, when I go out to speak, don't realize that there are new shows every year. But yes, there are new shows. They're dwindling, but there are still new shows.

	The "Sesame Workshop Model" brings together educators, child developmental psychologists, and producers to create programming that entertains and educates.

About thirty-six, thirty-seven years ago, Joan Ganz Cooney had a vision very similar to the KCEd vision, which is to use a popular medium, such as television, to educate young children. Part of that vision also was to set up three teams of individuals who don't usually work together. We call this the Sesame Workshop model -- bringing together the educators, the child developmental psychologists, and the producers to work hand-in-hand on a daily basis to create programming. I think that this is the key to the success of “Sesame Street.” I am in daily conversations with our producers and writers to make sure that the mission of “Sesame Street” comes across in each and every production.

When Joan had this vision of using television to teach kids, to prepare children for school, she also assessed the media landscape. What were people watching? In those days, there were a lot of variety programs and a lot of co-viewing. Hence, we created a program that was written on two levels, to attract the adult viewer as well as the child. The goal, however, was to reach children, to provide content for children. Some of the humor that is written at the adult level is to keep the adult co-viewing with the child in the hope of extending the learning of the show. As you are trying to create a program for a dual (child and adult) audience, you still have to have a core goal, you still have a core audience, while knowing that there are other members of the audience watching. I urge you to keep that in mind.

Media Landscape Effects on Parenting
When we started, there was great emphasis placed on training workshops. This is something that Faith talked about. You just can't put a television show out there; you also need to let people know about the show and how to use it. So community education service was a big part of the Workshop. It's taken on a variety of evolutions: the PEP program, for example. Currently we have been doing a lot of funded, multiple media outreach initiatives, which is what I'm going to highlight here today.

“Another part of the media land- scape we need to keep in mind is how parents are using media today.”

Another part of the media landscape we need to keep in mind is how parents are using media today. Just compare today to the eighties, when we would do focus groups or research. In the eighties, the parents were very socially conscious of how much television their children were watching. They would say, “No, they don't watch too much television.” Now I go to focus groups and they’re very proud that their child watches television. They see the educational value of some of the shows, which is great. However, being proud that your six-month-old is propped up watching “Sesame Street” is not something I think you should be proud of. I get very frustrated as a child psychologist listening to these focus groups.

Also, I've been doing a lot of analysis of baby videos. Parents are fearful. They realize that they are their children's first teachers and they don't want their child to fall behind. Baby Mozart videos are flying off the shelf. There's absolutely no research to show that babies are benefiting in any way by watching these videos. After reviewing many of them, I feel that there might even be a detrimental effect. So I can't wait for some of that research to come out.

Speaking of the dual messaging on “Sesame Street,” I spend a lot of time on scripts for our wonderful human cast – Maria, Luis, Gordon – who take on the parenting role. I'm often disappointed when I do talk to parents (in focus groups) that they don't see the parenting messages being conveyed during the hour-long program. It's also disappointing that they don't see the comprehensive nature of “Sesame Street.” The series is based on a comprehensive curriculum, which deals with all aspects of child development. But, all you hear, and you heard it in your tape last night, is “my child was learning letters and numbers.” There's so much more. There's cultural diversity. There's pro-social learning. But sadly, it is only the letters and numbers they see.

	“When you do use content for children in a TV program, try also to convey adult messages.”

When you do use content for children in a TV program, try also to convey adult messages. We've been doing a lot of work on this. Parents get confused when they see child content in the programs. We have these wonderful outreach videos on literacy, which have live action footage of adults interacting with their children. We also have on “Sesame Street” Muppet interactions, too. But, parents see the Muppets and they say, “Well, this is for the kids, this is not for us.” So, while you're trying to create dual audience viewing, for both kids and parents, know that there will be some confusion out there.

As I mentioned, most of our outreach materials now are focusing on multiple media, multi-lingual outreach initiatives that are funded so that we can do free distribution. When we do Spanish programming, we try to get enough production money so that it is produced separately in the Spanish language. We don't use the second audio channel or dubbing. Our Spanish programming is actually an original Spanish production.

“Most of our outreach materials now are focusing on multiple media, multi-lingual outreach initiatives that are funded so that we can do free distribution.”

We have two wonderful literacy initiatives. We also did a wonderful outreach initiative on music, on the role of music in early childhood education, using music as a tool. This was not to promote the Mozart effect, but to help parents know that music can be a wonderful educational tool. The most recent outreach project, which we're going to launch at the end of this month, really was in reaction to 9/11. It's, “You Can Ask,” focusing on stress in young children's lives. We were so amazed when we did our research to find out how parents don't realize that there is stress in young children's lives, that there's stress in the home environment. “You Can Ask” is an outreach initiative where we are encouraging parents to talk to their children and children to talk to adults, providing strategies to help them deal with stressful times and to become more resilient.

Parents are First Teachers
I thought it would be useful to have some key messages that we've learned on these various projects. Everything is based on research and consultation with project advisors. We talked about the first one, parents as the first teachers: loving attachments to help children communicate, read books, talk to children starting at birth. Many parents say, “Oh yeah, it's important to start reading maybe around age one,” but they never think about starting to read at birth.

Another key message is to learn your child's signals, the stop and go signals. It's amazing when you talk to some researchers and they bring these split-screen videotapes. The infant is turning away because they have enough of Mom talking, and the mom continues to talk and doesn't pick up on that subtle cue.

Sesame Street has learned over the years that listening and speaking lead to reading and writing.

Another key message is literacy begins with listening. Listening is such an important factor here, and parents don’t get that piece. “Listen? You mean I have to listen to them? I can speak to them, but listening?” Listening and speaking lead to reading and writing. You can speak two languages in the home and this is not confusing to the children. There are so many parents who feel that only one language can be spoken because it's going to be too confusing otherwise.

Share experiences and ideas with your child's teachers and caregivers. That's another issue that caregivers talk about. Parents don't give them enough information about their child. Try to encourage that. We talked about listening. Encouraging children to talk with caregivers helps them use language in new ways. Reading with your children helps them on the road to loving books and reading. We packaged a bilingual book. Parents love this so much, especially when we do parent pages. It's one book, and one side is in Spanish and then one side is in English.

Provide experiences to experiment with all types of writing. Yes, children need to have writing implements in their hands and they need to scribble and they need to create their books.

Music works. Children learn and grow with music. Everyone can explore and share culture through music. Someone mentioned the role of music in experiencing culture. You can express yourself through music, and the importance of enjoying and making music. This initiative is really focusing on the creation of music, not just simply listening to music.

“You Can Ask,” as I mentioned, is a mental health initiative. This, unfortunately, will not be disseminated nationwide. But there will be a website so that everyone will have access to the content of this initiative. I mentioned the importance of asking questions and talking about your concerns, using everyday moments to start these conversations.

Continuous Research for Program Development
The role of formative research – thank you, Dorothy Singer, for mentioning that. It is at the cornerstone of everything that we do at the workshop. We often start with a meeting such as this, with experts in the field. But then we do focus groups for each of the target audiences of our initiatives: the caregivers, the family childcare providers, the center-based child providers, parents. Focus groups are done in their language. We want to make sure that we convey certain messages and respect the cultures that we're trying to address.

	“It's important: going back, and doing additional focus group research with your target audience to make sure you've got it right.”

External advisors also review the materials. This is an iterative process. It's important: going back, and doing additional focus group research with your target audience to make sure you've got it right. It's not a one-time event where, Okay, we did focus groups, we got feedback, and now we're moving on and we'll go into production And, of course, there is the ongoing consultation with the Sesame Workshop content team.

Summative research is also very important for many of these projects. We do utilize a variety of methods – response surveys using print and online response cards and often doing more focus groups to gauge use, comprehension and impact. The best type of research we would like to do is pre-post-experimental control kinds of impact studies. They're very costly. But when we are putting the grants together, this is something that we do strive for.

Success of Outreach Initiatives
I want to go over results that we've found on these outreach initiatives. Some of them are general and some of them are specific to the content area. Start with the caregivers. They're convinced that the parents need the basic information, that the parents are not giving the most and doing the most for their children. They find these outreach materials useful to convey information in a non-threatening manner. Even though they think that they know it all, they're still learning strategies, such as the important role of listening to children as a part of literacy. The greatest impact that we have had when we do these impact studies is with the family childcare providers, and the Latino caregivers. They want to see models of appropriate parenting and developmental practices. They ask for that.

Music
Music is a fun way to deliver messages. We have a great history of creating original songs, but they want the lyrics. So if you're going to use music in your program, you need to include the lyrics. The use of humor is important, especially in videos. When we have these parent/child live action snippets, some people make mistakes. They want to do it again. No, those mistakes are real. Leave them in.

Readability
Gloria Rodriguez talked about eighth grade reading levels. We found sixth grade reading level or below is most appropriate for the target audience. The format cannot be busy and it needs to be organized. Sometimes the graphics department at “Sesame Workshop” wants to do all this fun graphics stuff – it's too much. They need things simple, clear. Parents want to know what they need to expect from their children. They don't have the basic child development 101 background that many of us do. Zero to Three did this wonderful study that shows that parents don't know what is appropriate at developmental milestones. The video presentation is an ideal way of modeling.

General feedback
Parents want clear, concise examples of what to do. They need tips. They need suggestions. They need activities. They need scripts. Sometimes they say - just tell me what to say and how to say it. They also need information reinforced. So we talked about repetition. Well, reinforce these messages but in a variety of different ways and formats and places.

Spanish language
As I said earlier, Spanish-language parents feel that they have less information, less resources, so this is great that this is one of your target audiences because they feel that they need this information. Most of our gains have been with the Spanish-language parents and caregivers.

“You Can Ask”
Parents feel that they should not hesitate to ask their children questions, but they’re not quite sure how to go about this. We've learned a lot of interesting information in this particular initiative, because we are targeting Chinese, Spanish and English speakers, who live in the area that was affected by 9/11. Everyone's talking about the use of regular routines to communicate to children. But Chinese parents, for example, do not view the dinner time as a time to speak to children, whereas Hispanic families say, yes, this is the best time to discuss family matters. This is a good example of the cultural differences to be aware of when you’re trying to convey strategies and model ways of communicating.

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio
June 13, 2003
KCEd Expert's Convening