Every minute of a preschool child’s life is of enormous value. What children encounter and learn during those minutes shapes the developing brain with lifelong consequences. Today’s preschool children spend many of those minutes with screen media, especially television and other forms of video. Are these minutes well-spent? Decades of research have found that the answer is both yes and no.
As an example of the two sides of this answer, my colleagues and I studied more than 500 children’s TV viewing during their preschool years (half the children were in Massachusetts and half in Kansas). We studied those same children more than twelve years later when they were near graduation from high school. Among other things, we obtained their high school transcripts. Those teens who watched mostly educational programming during the preschool years (at that time, mostly Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Sesame Street) got better grades in high school English, math, and science, read more books outside of those assigned in school, and were less likely to endorse aggressive and violent solutions to social problems. A preschool TV diet rich in educational programs predicted good outcomes in high school. In contrast, those teens who had preschool television diets rich in violent action programs got poorer grades, and were more likely to endorse aggressive and violent behaviors.1 Watching moderate amounts of television, by itself, was neither good nor bad. What mattered was what the children watched. In contrast to Marshall McLuhan’s famous dictum, “the medium is message,” we concluded that the “message is the message.” A nutritious TV diet fosters healthy development; a junk TV diet does the opposite.
The foremost chef for nutritious preschool television is Angela Santomero. Her creations include Blue’s Clues, Super Why!, and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, among others. In this book she reveals the secret sauce that induces kids to watch and learn and come back for more. Why was Blue’s Clues the first preschool program to consistently invite audience participation? How does that help kids learn? What is the thinking behind creating the Clues and the Notebook, and why is Blue a girl? What are the behind-the-scenes decisions concerning pacing, repetition, and kids’ emotional responses to the programs? How do Angela and her crew know that kids will like and learn from a program before it is aired? Here are the answers to these and many more questions.
I met Angela in the early 1990s when she was a young research coordinator at Nickelodeon. The company had successful programs for older kids, but was then trying to develop a new lineup of preschool programs. Because I was one of only a few developmental scientists who studied how children watch and understand television, I was invited to provide advice on the creation of these new programs. I agreed when the company said that the programs would be designed to be beneficial and educational for preschoolers. I was also pleased that the programs would not be interrupted by commercials. As we worked on programs such as Gullah Gullah Island, Angela would call me to take notes on my comments concerning program concepts and scripts. These calls always turned out to be much longer as Angela talked with me about research and her own ideas for children’s programs. Over time, Angela began to develop more specific ideas for a program and pitched Nickelodeon on these ideas. To my delight, she systematically incorporated child development theory as well as my own and others’ research findings concerning kids’ TV viewing and comprehension. Underlying it all, she was inspired by her own memories of her preschool years watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Sesame Street.
Eventually Angela was given the green light to develop a pilot for a new program tentatively called Blue Prints. Angela began to create what became a new age of preschool programming.2 The show was different in many ways from good programs developed in previous decades. This was most obvious in the way it combined a live-action host character (initially Steve Burns) who lives in an animated world populated by an animated cast of characters. Nevertheless, every innovator takes advantage of earlier giants. Inspired by Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Angela incorporated audience participation as an essential element of the program. Inspired by Sesame Street, Angela knew that the program, to be effective, must be based on foundational research (the accumulated knowledge and theory of child development research) and formative research specific to the program.
Finally, the big day came. The pilot episode of Blue Prints was finished, and it would be competitively tested against pilot episodes of several other programs. The pilots were shown to preschoolers and their attention and reactions were recorded. The results were clear; the children loved Blue Prints: They laughed, helped find Blue’s Clues, yelled out the answers to thinking problems, and generally had a very good time. Testing showed that they learned important lessons taught in the pilot. When asked what the name of the show was, all the kids answered without hesitation, “Blue’s Clues.” The children gave the program its name.
Blue’s Clues was chosen for broadcast. But there was a problem, it would be impossible in the time frame to have enough episodes completed to air a different episode every day. Episodes would have to be repeated daily, which would be a radical departure from usual practice. I brought the pilot home to see how my three-year-old daughter would like it and whether she would want to watch it more than once. She ended up watching it seventeen times by herself and with friends over about two weeks. Eventually, we did a study on repeated viewing. Not only did the children love watching the same episode five days in a row, their learning of ideas in the episode became much greater.3
Blue’s Clues became a huge success and launched Angela Santomero’s career as one of the foremost creators and producers of educational media for young children. Over time, her understanding of the audience has deepened, and all of the programs have been shown to have a real and positive impact. This may be why she has been able to have so many hit shows being telecast nationwide at the same time.
Blue’s Clues changed the way young children watch television, forever destroying the myth that television is a “passive” medium. We did a study showing that experienced Blue’s Clues viewers, compared to children who had not yet seen the show, were much more actively engaged in watching and participating than in other programs they had never previously seen.4 The children had learned a new way of watching TV and preschool TV viewing would never be the same again. Blue’s Clues and Angela have in fact inspired a new generation of television programs hoping to catch its interactive magic and engaged learning.
Every minute of a preschool child’s life is important. Angela designs every second of every minute of her programs to maximize positive impact. In this book, she gives us the ingredients for a most nutritious preschool media diet enriched with numerous parenting insights.
Daniel R. Anderson, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Psychological and Brain Sciences
University of Massachusetts Amherst