When a family clicks the CC button on their TV’s remote control, or clicks the CC option on YouTube, or video games like Fortnite, the text that appears on the screen is synchronized with the script and the on-screen action. This shows captions, or subtitles at the same speed as those on screen are speaking. Captions display only a few words at a time to better link the words spoken with the text displayed.
Watching screens with Captions ON triggers the mind to go from BI-MODAL (sound and action) into TRI-MODAL mode, where part of the brain is reading the text, part of the brain is registering the word sounds, and also registering the visual action. Camera studies show that the eye jumps back and forth between the visual and the on-screen captions.
This is the same process young readers use when a parent or teacher reads a book out loud, while showing the pictures and pointing to the words. This proven pedagogical process exposes children to text within context, in visual and auditory modes, combined with the visual action on screen. Captions do the same thing – with the huge number of channels and content for every age.
How has Caption.Cool calculated that 30 pages of screen time with Captions ON Is the equivalent of reading 30 pages of book?
First, we looked at how fast typical actors on TV shows speak, which is typically about 4-5 syllables per second, or 150 words per minute.
https://wordcounter.net/blog/2016/06/02/101702_how-fast-average-person-speaks.html
Then we looked at reading speeds or how fast children read. By the beginning of fourth grade, students should be reading close to Caption speed, and catch most words on shows broadcast at 150 words per minute. This speed increases each year to the adult typical speed of 250 words per minute, and speeds up more as students spend more screen time with Captions ON
https://www.readinga-z.com/fluency/fluency-standards-table/
Then we looked at how many words are on a page in great books students read. This web site has the calculations for thousands of titles…
When using this web site, set the reading speed to 150, and enter a book title.
For a great book like THE BFG, which has 38,425 words, a child would read that many words on screen in just over 4 hours of screen time.
By Leib Lurie, Co-Founder, Caption.Cool