Category: Subtitling On Video

… Less Than 10% of Those Teachers Are Receiving The Full Benefits.

Research conducted over the last 18 months indicates that more than 80% of teachers in the US are using video in the classroom as a valued teaching resource, however a combination of lack of subtitles (closed captions), and a lack of understanding how to use those subtitles effectively, mean that the vast majority of those teachers are not getting the full benefits from that video for themselves or their students.

Subtitles have widely been regarded in the past as being essential only for those smaller numbers of children with hearing impairments. But sadly this misapprehension is robbing students of many opportunities.

A substantial amount of research over the last 30 years has demonstrated that subtitles on video, movies and television, has the potential to significantly improve students reading and literacy skills. In fact a pilot program operated by the late Dr. Alice Killackey of the Availll Institute demonstrated the ability to improve children’s Reading and Literacy skills by as much as one year, in as little as 6 weeks.

Evidence substantiating this potential comes from countries like Finland that have for many years provided TV programming with subtitles as a matter of course, and as a result they repetitively top the list of OECD countries with the highest Reading and Literacy skills amongst children.

However the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that would enable children to improve their Reading and Literacy skills at the same time as studying a range of curriculum-based topics, has remained elusive while the majority of companies providing educational video for teachers have chosen to ignore and provide the use of subtitles – either because of the added cost of providing that captioning, or lack of awareness about the full potential it provides in the educational environment.
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