The other day we stumbled on the closed caption button on our television service (check out the menu items on your cable remote, look for icons on computer links, or contact your television service company to find out how to enable). Now my 7 year old constantly wants the words on the TV program as we are watching. He has always struggled more with language than spatial skills, and he is still working on basic reading abilities. He also is in the autistic spectrum, and when he has had interventions for that, they have worked on the "hidden meanings" behind our actual words (e.g., sarcasm, idioms, emotions behind words). I thought WOW, I can so understand why he wants to see the words with the visual (e.g., facial expressions, other people's reactions etc) and auditory input (e.g., hearing the words pronounced and combining that with the visual letters of the words on screen).
In our house, this was my son's great idea. However, perhaps all great ideas have been had before! In searching for more resources on using closed captioning in education I found these ideas.
An article listed under teacher resources at this link: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
How can you take best advantage of closed captioning in your classroom? Here is our Top Ten list:
I love how they reference "VCR"--the article must be a little old. The way we use closed captions in our house is to leave the sound and the captions on. That way, there is a connection between the spoken words and the written word. Sometimes, my son will say, "Oh, that's how you spell..." and he is starting to put together auditory and graphic information. He is also seeing how the written words are "played out" in the scene complete with emotions, sarcasm, "sayings" and other "meanings" not in the actual text.
How do you like to teach language arts to your kids? In your classroom?