ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the effects of literacy series targeted at school-age children. Literacy education has long been an area of major concern to American educators, researchers, and parents alike. As the focus of educational television series about literacy has varied along with educational theory, so too has the research that gauged their effects. The Electric Company employed a magazine format, with a number of comedy sketches, songs, and animations comprising a complete show. After the first season of The Electric Company was produced, researchers from the Educational Testing Service conducted an experimental/control, pretest-posttest study in which more than 8,000 first-through fourth-grade children participated. The impact of literacy-based programming on reading comprehension was assessed in unpublished dissertation research involving Reading Rainbow. The curriculum goals of the series centered on promoting children's literacy in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Several approaches were used to place literacy on the plotline in Ghostwriter.
