5-Minute Time Out: Word Girl
The story behind TV's smartest superhero (and her hilarious villains).
by Jennifer V. Hughes
December 5, 2008
What shows did you like watching when you were a kid?
The ones that informed Word Girl were Rocky and Bullwinkle, Bugs Bunny and The Electric Company. They didn't distinguish between adult humor and kid humor — it was just funny. There has been a trend recently to strip away adult humor and in my opinion that has dumbed down television and underestimated what kids are capable of.
You said you wanted the characters to be ethnically ambiguous. Why?
Because minorities are underrepresented on television and because in terms of vocabulary, there is a huge gap between high-income and low-income kids, and many low-income kids come from minority families. I really wanted to create as universal a role model as possible. I've heard a lot of people assume different ethnicities for her: white, black, Hispanic, Indian. But we also pride ourselves on making the extras in the cartoon diverse too. We wanted to present a world as diverse as the world we live in.
So why vocabulary?
Vocabulary is a hot topic now in education because vocabulary is the bedrock of literacy. If you don't know a word and you encounter it in a text book, math book or science book, your comprehension is compromised.
"I've heard a lot of people assume different ethnicities for her: white, black, Hispanic, Indian."
If your comprehension is not strong, your learning success is not strong. It has a huge impact down the line.
Well, the show did prompt my five-year-old to use the words "dazzling"and "sweltering" in a sentence.
Oh, fantastic! I love to hear those examples. She did it on her own, put it in context?
We got into the car one day and she said, "Mommy, it's sweltering in here."
Oh, that's so great! A lot of people were questioning whether the words were too big for kids, but we've been hearing anecdotes about two-, three-, and four-year-olds using big words. I have a friend whose four-year-old pooped in the potty and apparently it was quite big. Mom commented on that and the daughter says, "I know, I'm flabbergasted!" Her mom said, "Where did you learn that?" and the kid said "Word Girl!"
©2008 Nerve Media
About the Author
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Jennifer V. Hughes is a writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Mothering magazine and the Columbia Law School Report. She also makes a killer sangria. |
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