Clearly our heroine, Ruthie — of the comic strip One Big Happy, has heard the traditional wedding vows often enough to perform her own ceremony. Imagine how immediate and complete her comprehension would be if she were now to see and read the vows!

We all look for visual cues to help us better understand what we are watching or hearing. When the news is on, the crawl at the bottom of the screen confirms or informs us of what is going on in the world. During baseball and football games, the stats and score shown at the top or bottom of the screen give us an instant summary of the game in progress. When someone reads a passage to a group, frequently the group members follow along in a supplied program or book.

Closed captions can do the same for children watching a television show or movie: The words on the screen can help children with word recognition or to better comprehend what has been said and, as a result, improve their reading skills. A 1984 study by the National Captioning Institute (NCI) showed that children who watch television with closed captioning “significantly improved their vocabulary and oral reading fluency.” More research is surfacing to support these findings. Captioning is also a powerful tool for ESL students. The NCI’s web site provides a wealth of information about NCI services, how captioning works and its educational implications.

Televisions larger than 13" that were manufactured since 1993 have built-in caption decoders. Many DVDs support captions; DVDs also support subtitles in multiple languages.

Please join us in our efforts to improve your child’s reading comprehension, vocabulary and word recognition by using closed captioning, if possible, when your child is watching television. You can activate the closed caption (CC) chip with your TV remote or by a menu. Many movies on DVD also have captions or subtitles that can be activated with the DVD player’s remote. The links below can help you learn more:

Many thanks to Rick Detorie for permission to use his comic strip.