Between The Lions: Phonetic Analysis

In the show Between the Lions they use different methods to teach children phonemic awareness, phonetics, fluency, vocabulary development, and more. When I was a child I watched this show almost daily with my sisters. I liked the fact that it was educational and entertaining with how they used catchy songs to appeal to children. In this specific episode the way they taught phonetics stood out to me. They took the word “west” from the first song and turned it into the word “best” by taking out the “est”. This showed a relationship between the word west and best because of the “est” letters and the sound it makes. It then transitioned into another song which focused specifically on the “e” vowel sound within the word and how that vowel sounds …show more content…
In the “Arty Smarty Pants” part Arty focused on four words that sound alike or have similar letters in the words and these four words were displayed on the screen for the young viewers to observe. For a child like myself who watches the show daily, being exposed to at least four different words in an episode can enrich vocabulary …show more content…
Once again they are educating and enhancing the text comprehension of their young viewers but also keeping them entertained in doing so. I believe the best way the show helps children in their fluency is with the use of repetition and the songs. A lot of people, including myself learn best when they have some sort of catchy tune or rhyme or rhythm to help them remember. In this episode alone they sung the Pecos Bill song numerous times to the point it got stuck in my head. Also, this song focused of specific vocabulary words such as “wet”, “west” “bed”, etc. and they were mentioned numerous times throughout the episode. For a young or middle age child with a developing mind, these are words that would most likely become glued in their minds and eventually become a part of their natural vocabulary simply from hearing it numerous times in a twenty-five minute episode. All in all, Between the Lions is an extremely educational program that stimulate and enhances the developing mind of