Sunday, February 17, 2008

Subtitles

I recently attended a meeting sponsored by my school district, the point of which is to provide me with the tools, materials and expertise to have my child ready to enter Kindergarten. It would seem many children fall well below the "average" upon entry to Kindergarten and those who enter below tend to stay below their classmates until much later in their school career. So they're trying to get these kids to enter at an average level or above in order to give them an edge for their entire school run, not just Kindergarten. At this meeting the topic of subtitles came up and I commented about how great I thought they are and how they can really help someone struggling to learn a language. I got a couple of strange looks but I think I made my point. But you likely weren't there so I will reiterate. These kids ARE learning another language.. the language of verbal communication. My son at least is very capable of reading the subtitles that scroll across the bottom of his favorite movies and he definitely uses them to help him understand what's going on. My other 2 kids have to suffer through them but I secretly hope that perhaps just a smidgen of the information there will rub off and help them to become better readers. So.. if you can.. turn on those subtitles!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent idea. We recently started turning on the subtitles for our little guy and he loves them. :)

Karen said...

littlebopeep-
We found out how much he enjoyed them quite by accident one day when we played a disc that has the subtitles displayed without having to turn them on intentionally...We have since noticed that his level of interest in whatever is playing depends to a large degree on whether or not the subtitles are displayed. While he listens to (and will echo) the dialog, the subtitles seem to be his primary way of actually following the story. You never know where or when you will find a simple thing that can have so much of a positive impact!
Thanks for commenting!