Researchers at the University of California at Riverside looked at whether educational DVDs actually help children learn.
They selected 88 children between 12 months and 5 years to be part of the research. Half of the participants watched educational DVDs for six weeks, the other half didn’t. The result after six weeks: children in both groups knew the same words.
Educational DVDs do not make your kids smarter and do not accelerate their learning. They are of no use for children under three years especially. After three, children develop cognitive abilities that allow them to learn more from DVDs. Before this age, they have no effect.
Researchers say the most effective way to help children learn is for parents to be present and interact with them. This simple method actually makes a difference, unlike DVDs.
Psychologist Rebekah Richert and her team did another study. They looked at how many highlighted words in the assigned video each child was able to learn. Results were clear.
Dr. Richert stated, "We found that over the course of six weeks, the children watching the DVDs didn’t learn any more words than children not watching."