Emily Herman
Dr. Dittmer-McMahon
September 29, 2015 There are many shows on television today in which are directed towards children and learning. Some are animated and others are not, but all are directed toward helping children learn and grow. One of these shows would be Sesame Street. Not only are these shows fun and entertaining for children, but they are also helping them to develop in memory, language and motor skills. One morning, Sesame street was on and I was able to observe some of the aspects as to which the show tries to promote learning. There were many components and segments during a short period of time in which they promoted learning and activity based skits on how to solve certain problems. One aspect that could be seen
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185). In this, the show helps kids learn more about language by showing that one letter, in this case o, can be used for many words by bringing in animals that start with the letter like orangutan and octopus who like items like oatmeal, olives and oranges. In this way, they are helping kids to see things in many contexts that each has different meanings. A third element that they use in this episode, was dual representation, “viewing a symbolic object as both an object in its own right and a symbol” (Berk 2010, p. 175). In a segment, Bert and Ernie talk about a circle. To Bert the circle is just that a circle which is a shape and round and a never ending line. However, to Ernie, the circle represents many things like the sun, a pizza, a clock, and a bowl. In this way the show is teaching kids that an object, in this case a circle is its own thing, while also being a representation for many other things. Shortly after this, as a short break between the larger segments Sesame Street kept helping kids learn and grow in this case by the use of cardinality- “the last number in a counting sequence indicates the quantity of items in a set” (Berk 2010 p.187). By using acorns growing on a tree, they introduced the number of the day in which was sixteen by showing the acorns growing while