The book is called The Tipping Point. It isn't focused on children's education or even children at all. It's about social epidemics and what causes them. Why were Hush Puppy shoes so popular? Why was Paul Revere's midnight ride so successful, but his buddy's ride was kind of lame (William Dawse, who's ride was the same night, same time, same message, just a different route)? What sparked the fall in NYC crime rates in the late 80's, early 90's? If you like social science, you really should read it.
The wild popularity of Sesame Street when all of the experts thought that it should fail was just another example. Kids weren't only watching the program and entertained by it, they were retaining a lot of what they watched, they were learning. That level of retention is what the scientists in the book called "the sticky-ness factor."
It was very good stuff, but got way more interesting when they started talking about how Blue's Clues built on, and improved on, everything that made Sesame Street work. My kids never really watched Sesame Street, they watched Blue's Clues. And the "sticky-ness factor" for Blues Clues was off the chart. It is, in fact, the sticky-est show ever stuck on TV.
So much about the show that seemed so natural and easy is actually very deliberate. Here are a few of the most interesting items.
Each episode repeats 5 times a week. That's on purpose. For preschool children, retention is a process. As far as retention goes, 5 times seems to be the perfect amount. Fewer viewings results in less retention, more results in a loss of interest.
Story format. Where Sesame Street is a mish mash of skits, each episode of Blue's Clues is a story, which has the effect of holding a child's attention longer.
Mystery aspect. The mystery aspect to the story actually increases their attention as the show progresses, lengthening attention spans. And helping to figure out what Blue is talking about engages them much more than a show that is just being shown to, or unraveled for them.
Plain language. The table is named Table. The salt and pepper shakers are named Salt and Pepper. Apparently, preschoolers retain better when plain language is used like this. They can find it confusing if the salt and pepper shakers had other names too, like Maulder and Skully. When plain language items that a child already has a name for, like mailbox, are then given another name, there's less sticky-ness.
Nothing is geared toward adults at all. it's all for pre-schoolers. Sesame Street gives a lot of winks at the adults that either confuse or bore kids, or leave them uninterested. Monsterpeice Theater was one example.
Loooooong pauses. the pauses that Steve and Joe take when waiting for the child at home to respond to something are pre-school pauses, not grown up pauses. They're awkward and excruciating to sit through sometimes, but they're on purpose.
They didn't touch on the comparison between Steve and Joe to see which is better, probably because everyone knows that it's Steve. From his remote location on Noggin, he babysat my children many times while I tried to grab a 20 minute nap.
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