Can TV teach kids to read?

Jeni Huckstep thinks so.

Huckstep, a Ready to Lead in Literacy coordinator, will present a workshop today to show future teachers how to use educational PBS programming to teach children.

The Word World and Feelings are back-to-back workshops held by the Student Association for the Education of Young Children starting at 7 p.m. in Buzzard Hall, room 1103.

The Word World workshop is based on the PBS show of the same name.

In the feelings workshop, Huckstep will give out information from Parenting Counts, and work with a feelings book that can be used to help children understand their emotions.

Felicia Coster, a junior elementary education major and SAEYC president, said spaces are still open for students who would like to attend. About 20 students are signed up and the first 25 will receive a free literacy kit.

The literacy kit includes a book, DVD, Frisbee and pencils for the future teachers’ classroom.

Coster chose Word World because it was new and different, and featured reading education.

The workshops are designed for the members of SAEYC, along with early childhood education and family consumer science majors.

In this workshop, Huckstep will show students how to use PBS’s educational programming to educate young children.

Sham’ah Md-Yunus, assistant education professor and an event faculty adviser, said Huckstep will provide books, manuals and instruction for the teachers.

The future teachers will learn how to use these books and other information to help children understand and express their feelings in appropriate ways, Yunus said.

Yunus said the Word World workshop is popular and is focused on toddlers and preschoolers ages 3 to 5, trying to bridge the literacy gap. Sixty-eight percent of fourth graders read below proficiency, according to a report by the National Assessment of Education Progress.

The Word World is a show with everything from dogs to buildings are made of the letters in its name, and the characters roam around searching for the letters to form what they need.

Huckstep’s goal is to help teachers use the educational programming to increase learning away from the TV, and to increase print awareness, literature knowledge and comprehension.

“It is important that this is not passive,” Huckstep said. “It is important to interact to make kids want to do what is show on TV.”

The Feelings workshop was chosen as a good socio-emotional workshop.

“It’s important for young children to know how to express emotions, and this ties in with the early childhood education,” Coster said.

Huckstep said children are not born with the knowledge of how to deal with emotions. Emotions are taught.

Utilizing the well liked make-and-take concept, Huckstep plans on each teacher leaving with a book filled with images and names of emotions to show children. This will allow the child to put a name to the emotion they feel.

“Feelings are natural and don’t have to be a big scary thing,” Huckstep said.

Huckstep said PBS is trying to be responsible by providing the education that goes with its television programming.

James Roedl can be reached at 581-7942 or DENnewsdesk@gmail.com.