Many years ago, Finland purchased old American TV shows. One was “McHale’s Navy”. The problem was, they didn’t have the money to change the language from English into Finnish on the show. Instead, they put in subtitles. The printed word in Finnish was on the TV.
And guess what happened? Children learned to read, in a natural way. The people in Finland are strong in reading. Adults always have a book in hand, which is a terrific role model for children. Formal instruction in reading doesn’t begin until age six.
Finland is #1 in reading in the world. America doesn’t even come close. We’re #26. That’s pretty sad.
Closed captions on TV does exactly the same thing. Did you know that every TV has a closed caption component? Do you want to help grow a reader, one who prefers TV? Turn on closed captioning!