Review: Wilbur

There's a show on Discovery Kids that's trying to teach children an important lesson: books are fun and empowering. Wilbur, a young calf, and his barnyard friends have fun and challenging adventures. When they get stuck on some particularly vexing problems, Wilbur turns to his books. After reading the first few words the books come to life, presenting your kids with an animated story. In these stories, the solution to Wilbur's problem is shown. Sometimes it takes another reading to get the whole solution nailed down, though.

The show uses a neat technique called Shadowmation which allows the puppets to move about in a three-dimensional virtual world. So while Wilbur and his friends are puppets, the scenery and some props are all computer generated. This allows for some better looking and more lavish sets than you usually see in a children's program.

I always find that an important factor in children's shows is just how much you can take of it as a parent. Some shows I like better than others. And in this regard, Wilbur does pretty well. There are a few campy bits, especially when Wilbur starts dancing just before reading a book, that might drive you crazy. And when the book is read multiple times, you can quickly lose your interest.

Of course, just because the show isn't amusing to us parents doesn't mean it's bad. Wilbur attempts to instill a love of literacy and literature in young children, and with that I think it might be very successful. Early childhood experts collaborated with the creators of Wilbur to help children increase print recognition, oral vocabulary, and listening comprehension. The series attempts to help children develop the patterns, flow, and nature of language. And of course, according to the creators, repeating the story several times (no matter how annoying it can be) helps develop the early literacy skills of sequencing, story structure, identifying concepts and making inferences.

New episodes of Wilbur will air the week of September 10th, during National Literacy Month. It can be seen at 11 AM ET on Discovery Kids and at 7:30 AM ET/PT on TLC.

August 20, 2007

Review: Wilbur