In an era dominated by screens and instant gratification, it’s no surprise that reading, particularly among children, is facing a decline. According to a YouGov survey, only 54% of American adults read a book in 2023, and the numbers are even worse for children, with only 43% of fourth graders scoring proficiently in reading. This concerning trend has led Henry Warren, a specialist in education technology, to advocate for a surprising solution: watching TV with subtitles turned on.
Warren, along with entrepreneur Oli Barrett, founded Turn on the Subtitles, a global initiative aiming to educate parents about the benefits of subtitles for improving children’s literacy. Their mission is rooted in the research showing a strong correlation between watching TV with subtitles and enhanced reading skills.
“We thought what we would do to get started was to just tell a few friends,” Warren explains. “And from there, it snowballed. It caught on like crazy.” The initiative gained momentum with support from prominent figures like Stephen Fry and, more recently, Jack Black, who became a vocal advocate for the campaign. The impact has been significant, with Turn on the Subtitles reaching over 400 million children worldwide.
The campaign’s success stems from its simple yet powerful approach. While technology and poverty are major contributing factors to declining literacy rates, Turn on the Subtitles offers a solution that leverages children’s existing screen time to improve their reading skills. Warren highlights that, “The average child in the U.K. watches about three hours and 16 minutes of TV every day. In the United States, it’s actually a little bit higher than that. But if they were to have the subtitles turned on when they are watching all that TV, they would read the same number of words that are in all of the Harry Potter books, the Narnia books, the Lord of the Rings books, and everything that Roald Dahl ever wrote combined.”
Turn on the Subtitles is not merely about encouraging casual reading; it’s about changing the way children engage with media. By incorporating subtitles into their daily viewing habits, children can become more familiar with written language, ultimately improving their reading skills. The initiative has even garnered attention from government agencies and streaming services, with some countries, like India, making subtitles mandatory for certain programming.
While the campaign emphasizes the benefits of turning on subtitles, it also acknowledges the need for accessible and engaging captions. To this end, they have developed “literacy-grade captions” or “Caterpillar captions”, which are designed to be visually appealing and easier for young children to read.
The initiative’s future goals include collaborating with schools, parents, and broadcasters to make subtitles a standard feature of children’s programming. Warren believes that with the combined efforts of celebrities, parents, teachers, and children, the simple act of turning on subtitles can have a profound impact on literacy rates worldwide. “Ultimately, our main goal is for everyone – celebrities, parents, teachers, and children—to do one simple thing: turn on your subtitles! You won’t regret it.”
