Excerpt from Jessica Helfand, "Between the Lions: Television You Have to Read." AIGA Journal of Graphic Design, 15:2 (Spring 1997) 15-16.

At our local Montessori school, the two-year olds are learning about typography. Okay, so they're not really learning about typography: but they are familiarizing themselves with the letters of the alphabet by rubbing their fingers over letterforms which have been hand-cut from sand paper. Here, they learn about texture and edges, about curves and right angles, about the relationship of letter to shape to sound. That they don't differentiate yet between the fish in the fish tank and the letters in the alphabet may have something to do with the world they live in: it's all a playful jumble at this age, where they push and poke, explore and discover the world around them.

One could argue that such attention to intellectual curiosity is the great promise of education in general, and of Public Television in particular. Certainly Sesame Street, now in its 28th year,has virtually revolutionized the way children learn: through an imaginative cast of characters (including the famous Jim Henson Muppets) and a rotating series of animated vignettes (in which letters and numbers dance and sing,) Sesame Street has been largely responsible for introducing preschoolers to the literate world.

At the same time, parallel to this remarkable achievement in childrens programming there has been a steady decline in national literacy. It is now estimated that 20% of the adult population in America is functionally illiterate. Recent studies have shown that there is a direct relationship between this statistic and the lack of exposure to early literacy skills instruction. In response to this, and in an effort to extend the great promise of Sesame Street, a group of distinguished writers, producers and early childhood specialists, led by WGBH-Boston and Sirius Learning, NY?have joined forces to create an ambitious new "multiple media" program designed to maximize both the broad reach of television and the empowering potential of technology. Called Between the Lions, it is an ambitious, nationwide educational initiative directed at four-to-seven year olds, and conceived of as a series of media-based projects whose purpose is to enhance literacy skills for children. With strategic alliances involving libraries, parents and literacy organizations, its principal objective is to reinforce the importance of reading and, in so doing, to make literacy a national priority.

Like Sesame Street--which established itself as a television program long before Tickle-me-Elmo dolls became big business--the heart of this project lies in the television series itself. The 'Lions' in the title don't just stand in front of the library whose entrance they flank, they are in charge of it: here in this delightful paradise, books come to life, prefixes have personalities, and vowels identify themselves by singing their own sounds. As a library it is anything but conventional, boasting a kooky cast of characters including a dinosaur with a fondness for synonyms (book? volume? tome?); a technologically-inclined mouse with a magical remote control; a pair of playful and mischievous lion cubs (with whom small viewers will surely identify); and the Lions themselves, whose principal delight lies in celebrating the power and pleasure of the written word. As on Sesame Street, letters rule: The 'Word Analyst' sees consonants but only on the couch; The 'Vowelles' are a singing group offering back-up vocals for performers in search of an a (or an i;or an e, o or u.) Stories themselves are parodies of familiar fairy tales or send-ups of popular culture: among them, a 90's take on the classic Dick and Jane stories; a revamped Mother Goose with alternative phrasing, phonics and pitch; and The Adventures of Cliff Hanger, a spin on the classic paradigm of the serialized drama. Through these recurring segments, children acquaint themselves not only with language skills, but with the literary models that bring them to life. 'Public Television has often been in the position of motivating kids and trying to provide a context for learning,' notes Kate Taylor, Director of Childrens Programming for WGBH. 'In the past, many of our programs have been successful for doing just that. What makes this project doubly exciting is that we're hoping to teach real literacy skills: not in a vacuum, but in new and imaginative ways that will be reinforced by the show.

But television is not the only venue for such teaching: broadly conceived as a 'virtual classroom,' Between the Lions will be extended through books and print materials, video cassettes and educational software, even a web site: this last component (referred to as its 'On-Lion' identity) in particular supports the user-centered, 'go-at-your-own-pace' nature of learning encouraged by progressive educational practice. But make no mistake: 'multiple' media--as opposed to multimedia--is less about the synchronicity of words and pictures (and sound and motion) and more about an integrated series of educational efforts that are united in their determination to build childrens' reading, writing, listening and speaking skills.

Literacy, of course, takes many forms. In a world that is being redefined by the communications that serve us?where media boundaries converge and geographic boundaries collapse?there is an enormous value in teaching some form of cultural literacy. Certainly the aesthetic pleasures of reading might be considered a part of this: to this end, the show's curriculum will extend beyond the functions of vocabulary building to place words in real contexts. Young viewers will learn about different kinds of texts, including (among others) stories, letters, newspaper and magazine articles, street signage, menus, lists, poetry, plays, songs, biographies, and reference materials.

It is particularly interesting to note the power of education in the service of literacy, and the degree to which many of the lessons learned have their basis in graphic design. One can imagine the degree to which typography, composition and editorial practices can inform such a curriculum, and the visual comprehension skills which stand to be gained as a result. And indeed, if Sesame Street succeeded in breaking new ground in communication design by inventing new ways to visualize language, Between the Lions will likely extend this metaphor by adding cultural, functional, personal, historical and of course, comical context to such richly varied messages. 'We're looking for new ways to use words on the screen,' notes Taylor, 'and to figure out how to integrate words and pictures so this becomes a show you actually have to read.

But in the end, the real breakthrough is a serious one. Advocates of early learning have typically been divided over the issue of whether literacy is better achieved through phonics--in which children learn to decode the alphabet and various sound patterns--or immersion in a language-rich environment, in which children learn to express themselves using whole words and eventually, whole sentences. The radical idea here is to use both approaches: children learn best, it is now believed, from a combination of both. The result is a 'whole-part-whole' structure that teaches both complete words in context, and words deconstructed phonetically into parts. This methodology suggests that children learn differently and at different speeds--another cultural phenomenon that underscores this project's overall philosophy, which the creative team attributes in part to the "multiple intelligences" theory pioneered by Harvard Professor Howard Gardner.

Such diversity clearly makes good programming sense as well: 'The "whole" gets viewers interested because it is story-based,' explains Taylor. 'Then the 'parts' can begin to make some sense, because they really add up to something.

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