Influence of Television viewing on Pre-school children's language performance in Municipality Zone of Meru County

Abstract

This study sought to find out the influence of TV watching on preschool children's language performance, the relationship between television presentations and role modeling in language development among pre- school children determine the effect of types of programs children watch on their language performance, it also sort to fmd out the influence of the duration of time spent on television viewing on children's language performance and to establish the relationship between television viewing on preschool children's language performance in Municipality Zone of Meru County.

The research used survey research design. The study population involved all the preschoolers and teachers in the preschools as well as the parents of the pupils. The specific sample constituted of 56 Preschoolers, 26 parents and 13 Preschool teachers making a total of 95 respondents. The instruments used in collection of data included questionnaires and interviews. Data collected during the study was then coded and presented graphically for easier understanding.

From the study, it was concluded that TV viewing affects the language development of children through role modeling where children always want to behave like the characters they see and end up developing language aspects such as pronunciation, intonations, vocabulary like those of the TV presenters. The study also found out that children like watching some programs more than others. In addition, the study established that the duration of time spent viewing TV is not directly proportional to language performance, Finally, the study found out that TV viewing affects language performance of preschoolers only to some extent by children role modeling the characters they admire on TV which may influence aspects of language performance such as pronunciation, intonations, vocabulary and spelling as there are other factors that determine the language performance of a child.

After the above conclusions the research recommended that children should be allowed to watch children friendly programs under the supervision of adults .Parents should not allow their children to spend too much time watching TV as this would not be of help to the child. Teachers should make use of other instructional materials during language teaching and this affects language performance more .Children also should be allowed to interact with each others so as to develop their language further and parent and teachers should also help them differentiate between episodes on TV and real life. The media should uphold the law that protects children from harmful TV programs that negatively affect children.