Growing up with deaf siblings, I became accustomed to watching most television programs and movies with closed captioning. Of course, by the time closed captioning was standard on all television sets I had been reading for years, so I’m not sure if it really helped my reading ability as a kid or not. Follow Along DVDs from Fox Home Entertainment and MGM Home Entertainment aim to use captioning to encourage kids to read or learn another language.
The DVDs feature colorful kid-captioning that basically works like normal closed captioning, printing what each character in the movie says at the bottom of the screen. Each movie can be played in English or Spanish with captioning in both languages as well. Our testing mom watched a variety of Follow Along movies with her 4-year-old son and 7-year-old neighbor including “Garfield the Movie,” “The Sandlot,” “Ice Age” and “Thumbelina.” Since the captioning moves with the speed of the movie, she said it often went by too quickly for the kids to read before it was off the screen. The 7-year-old read the captions aloud for awhile but tired of it and then asked for the captioning to be turned off. The mom did say that she thought the Spanish captions could be useful with a child learning Spanish as a second language.
Even if your child isn’t reading just yet, having the words in front of them while watching a movie can only help encourage reading. So whether you have the Follow Along DVDs or not, try turning on the closed captioning on your TV every once in awhile—you might even catch a line or two that you’ve never heard before on your favorite show or movie.
Follow Along DVDs retail for $14.98 each. For more information visit www.foxhome.com or www.mgm.com/dvd.php.