SR82.DOC

WHEREAS, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the amount of daily media use among children and teens has increased dramatically from 2004 to 2009; and

WHEREAS, the Kaiser Family Foundation also reports that although the amount of time spent watching regularly-scheduled television declined between 2004 and 2009 due to the ability to watch television through the Internet, cell phones, and other devices, America's young people still average over two and one-half hours of live television watching on a television set per day; and

WHEREAS, television replaces much of the time that children might otherwise spend reading books; and

WHEREAS, while television opens up new worlds of entertainment and information to children with pictures and sound capturing their attention, the absence of a reading component restricts this medium as a learning tool; and

WHEREAS, while originally developed for the deaf and hearing impaired, closed captioning also has the capability of enhancing learning by bringing reading to television; and

WHEREAS, in 1986, researchers Koskinen, Wilson, and Jensema noted:

"Captions are reading material. They can turn television into a moving story book, a steady stream of written language presented with both video and audio reinforcement. Viewers can see words on the screen, hear them spoken, and see them put into visual context. One of the most exciting potential applications of closed captioning is its use as an educational tool"; and

WHEREAS, research has shown that closed captioning has the ability to enhance vocabulary, reading speed, word association, and spelling; and

WHEREAS, closed captioning is a free service provided by the television industry, and most televisions purchased after 1993 already have the capability to display closed captioning; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-sixth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2011, that the Department of Education is requested to implement a closed captioning pilot project beginning with the 2011-2012 school year as a teaching and learning tool for public elementary and middle school students to be selected by the Department; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the closed captioning pilot project should be designed to compare levels of reading ability between a group of students who have captioning integrated into their school curriculum and a group of students who do not have captioning integrated into their school curriculum; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Department of Education, at the end of the 2011-2012 school year, is requested to compile a report on the status of the closed captioning pilot project that includes:

(1) The age, grade level, and reading ability of students at the beginning of the pilot project who had closed captioning integrated into their curriculum;

(2) The age, grade level, and reading ability of students at the beginning of the pilot project who did not have closed captioning integrated into their school curriculum;

(3) Any change in reading ability from the beginning to the end of the pilot project of all students who participated in the pilot project; and

(4) A comparison, at the end of the pilot project, between the reading levels of the two groups of students; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Department of Education is requested to submit its report to the Legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the Regular Session of 2013; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the Superintendent of Education and the Chair of the Board of Education.

	OFFERED BY:	_____________________________

Report Title:

Department of Education; Closed Captioning; Pilot Project

THE SENATE	S.R. NO.	82
TWENTY-SIXTH LEGISLATURE, 2011
STATE OF HAWAII