Parents of first grade students completed surveys regarding their opinions of the video component of the Take Me To Your Readers reading program. Vanderbilt University Research and Development Team for the Young Children’s Literacy Project compiled the following information:

• 95% of the children watched the videos, and over half (57%) of the children watched the videos two or more times. Eighty-five percent of parents reported that they watched each video with their child at least once.

• 94% percent of parents reported that their children liked the alien characters, and all families reported that children liked the stories in the videos.

• 100% of parents said that the tips in the stories and at the end of each video were helpful for them or other family members in knowing how to help their child’s reading. (Mean rating was 3.3 on a scale of 4 for this survey item; 48.5% said that they agreed with this statement “a lot”)

• 74% reported that they changed the way they read with their child because they learned something from the videos.

• 82% reported that they got new ideas for ways to increase the amount of time that someone reads with their child.

• 97% said they got ideas for new ways to ask their children questions about books.

• 91% said that they got ideas from the videos for other new ways to talk with their child about books.

• 91% said that they got ideas from the videos for new ways to build their child’s vocabulary.

• 88% said that they got ideas from the videos for new ways to help their child match print to sounds.

• 82% reported that the videos motivated them to use the public library more

• 100% of parents reported that they would be interested in receiving more, similar videos.

• 97% reported that they would recommend the videos to another parent.

In May 2003 the Vanderbilt University Research and Development team surveyed 13 first grade teachers, including one teacher in an ELL classroom, who had used the Take Me To Your Readers program for at least one year in an urban school. These students used all components of the program including videos, coloring books, reading books, fun sheets and software activities. Students used the program at least three times a week.

• 100% of the teachers said they would be interested in using the program again.

• 100% of the teachers said they would recommend it to other teachers.

Sample comments:

• The students loved it! It is fabulous. It's a great help with
phonics and reading.

• It is an excellent targeted program that individually supports our reading curriculum. It is easy to implement, and the activities have a sound phonetic base.

• It is a great teaching and especially reinforcing tool. The children enjoy using it. They also learn true facts while working on phonics skills.

• The children enjoyed and benefited from the program. They were introduced to many things through the software and it was a different approach to reinforcing the lesson.

• It reviews, provides practice, and strengthens phonetic skills. I
especially liked Part 3 where the word appeared quickly and
disappeared. It provided excellent phonics practice for oral and
visual discrimination. It also reinforced sounds that students had
not mastered yet. And they enjoyed it.

• It was a great practice and reinforcer of phonics skills learned in the classroom. Kids enjoy it.

• It is a great supplement to teaching phonics and students enjoy the program.

• I really like the way it is set up.