Captions In The Classroom Boost Literacy Skills
New educational technologies give teachers an immediate advantage in making their lessons relevant and interesting to students of all ages.
With interactive white boards, DVDs, laptops and smart devices, classrooms become exciting places to learn instead of simply reading from a book.
Teachers can boost their students’ literacy by using captioned material when teaching, regardless of the childrens’ hearing ability. Younger children will enjoy watching a captioned DVD in which they can see and hear the words. For older kids who can read, maybe switch off the sound so they follow by reading the words; then ask questions to check their understanding.
Some benefits of captions:
- Children identify and consolidate words via word-association.
- Children learn to link written words with spoken words.
- Reading captions motivates kids to read outside of the classroom.
- Captions support deaf and hard of hearing children in a classroom.
- Any ESL students in a class, benefit from aural & visual word links.
- Children with reading and literacy issues practice comprehension.
- Children who are new to reading, build their skills and learn words.
Watching a DVD with subtitles is similar to reading a story from a book. Children will learn to pick up the words in the same way, and to remember them for the next time. It is also a different approach to teaching new words instead of children having their heads stuck in a book for a full school day.
(compiled by Miriam Walsh)
Further Reading:
Technology For Inclusive Teaching
Australia’s Deaf Kids Get Captions In Classrooms
Digital Readers (eReaders) Improve Child Literacy