Literacy Tips

Using the TV Show
Get the most from Between the Lions on TV

1. Watch the show with your kids. Share some time with them to see what they like. There are many fun things in the shows for grownups! Surf this Web site with your kids, too. It's been designed for kids and parents to explore together.
2. Help them to read the text that appears on the screen when they're watching. There's lots! When we made the show we worked with many reading experts, and they all said it's really important to show so many words.
3. Every show focuses on one story and a curriculum based on rhymes, letters, or other phonics. Use the Find It! index to locate games, activities and video clips according to skill focus and curriculum.
4. Talk about the stories on the shows, especially the ones with the lions themselves.
5. Role-play the characters. grownups should sometimes practice being Leona and Lionel. Kids should practice being the Lion adults, Cleo and Theo. And don't forget Click!
6. Learn the songs. All of them have great lessons in literacy, and they are a lot of fun.
7. Talk about how the characters are all different. What would it be like if the monkeys ran the library? Is Dr. Nitwhite smart or not?
8. Look for Between the Lions activities at your local library.
9. Ask your kids about the words they learned in that day's show. Help them use the words in a story or in everyday conversation, or help them practice writing the words.

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In the News
Use your daily newspapers to help your kids read

1. Let your kids see you reading. You are the best role model. Reading isn't just books. A kid seeing you read a paper will discover that reading can help you find entertainment, news or information about local events.
2. Read the comics together. Let them cut out and collect their favorites.
3. Use the newspaper to look for information that's relevant to your kids. Look for movie listings, yard sale information, kids events, and sports reports about their favorite teams.
4. Look at your local paper and talk about the people, places and street names that they might know.
5. Look at the weather reports and forecasts. Talk about why reading the forecast helps you plan outings or what to wear. Look at the international reports and talk about what it's like to live in very hot, very cold or very wet places.
6. Make up silly captions to go with photographs in the paper.
7. Pretend your kids are news reporters, and have them make up (or write) a news report based on something you've done together. Have them interview you, and help them ask questions to put their story together.
8. Explain the difference between news and advertisements. If your kids watch commercial TV, you could explain that the ads are trying to sell all kinds of stuff to your kids, good and bad. Then switch back to PBS before it's too late... :-)

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Tunes for Tots
Learn how music can help your kids learn to read

1. Visit the library. You can often borrow CDs, records, and audio tapes. Some libraries have listening rooms to listen there. It's another good reason to get your kids interested in the library.
2. Libraries often have music records and CDs that are created especially for kids. Raffi rules!
3. Check out VHS tapes or DVDs of musicals or musical performances. Some tapes are made especially for kids, like sing-alongs. There are some great classic musicals, as well as some good re-makes, like the recent ABC version of Annie.
4. It's all free, so you should use the opportunity to explore. Have you ever listened to a whole opera?
5. Many libraries carry sheet music. You can use it to learn the words to songs, or to learn how to play an instrument yourself.
6. Listen to music together and sing along to the radio. Learning words to songs is one more way to help strengthen kids' use of language.
7. Make instruments! There are several at the ZOOM Web site with easy-to-follow instructions. You can also download a cool interactive Zoom Xylophone to experiment with. It even records your tunes.
8. Learn the songs from the shows; all of them have great lessons in literacy, and they are a lot of fun.
9. Read non-fiction stories about the lives of real musicians. In our Recommended Books section, you'll find some suggestions.
10. Make up new songs by changing the words to familiar tunes.

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On the Television
Turn TV or videos into help with reading

1. Don't rely on the TV to teach your kids to read or learn about the world. Here at PBS we make some of the best kids TV shows on TV, but none of us thinks that TV is a substitute for time spent with your kids reading, learning and laughing together.
2. We believe that Between the Lions can help, however, and we've spent several years putting this show together, working closely with educators from across the US. Look at our ten tips called Using the TV Show.
3. Talk about any show you've watched, or any movie your kids have just seen. Can they tell you about the plot or the characters? Can they imagine themselves in the story? How do they think the show was actually made? Does the show remind them of a story they've read?
4. Can they write or tell you a review of what they saw? Can they say enough about it to let a friend know what it was about and whether they should see it? Check out ZOOMreviews for typical movie, song, book and TV reviews by older kids.
5. Turn on closed captions while you watch TV, and let kids know that the text they can read is the same as the words they can hear. Even pre-readers need to know that all words, sounds and ideas can be expressed as text.
6. Use your library to rent movies, especially old ones that you liked when you were a kid. Share your joy with them. Look for things that your kids haven't seen on TV before.
7. Have them talk about how a favorite book might make a great movie. Or a terrible movie! Talk about how a movie is often one person's idea of what a book should be like, but that it might not be yours or your kid's.
8. See if your kid's favorite book has been made into a movie. Watch it together and talk about the two. Movies like Stuart Little differ from the book. Movies like the first Winnie-the-Pooh animation, or the recent Madeline movie, are closer to the books.
9. If you're watching a show or movie with a plot point involving a character reading or writing something, point it out. Messages in bottles! Secret codes! Treasure maps! Valentines! Use these examples to talk about how useful reading and writing really are.
10. Help kids read words on the screen, especially ones that are not read aloud by the people on TV: names of cities on weather maps, street signs, names of sports players in interviews.

Next: Literacy on Location
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