TV Show: Between the Lions

Between the Lions is an engaging literacy show that has been positively linked with literacy growth in young children.

I'm not a huge advocate of television, but there are extremes to everything. Watching TV all day will not produce highly literate children, but not watching ANY television at all seems a little silly - especially when there are wonderful shows like Between the Lions out there.
Between the Lions is a 30 minute show on PBS that begins each episode with a family of lion puppets who work in a library. The main story line stems from their interactions and the story that they read at the very beginning, but it is packed full of other fun songs and activities throughout the show. It is Isadora's favorite show to watch and she requests it every time I ask her what she wants to watch.
The impressive thing about Between the Lions is that they have done some studies on it that have actually shown that children who watched the show had higher word recognition and standardized reading test scores than students who didn't watch the show. In addition, teachers have written about how they use the show to promote literacy in their kindergarten classrooms. I call that a win-win situation. My daughter loves it and I love it. :) To find out more, click here for the shows website.