A single episode of the preschool educational television program Blue's Clues was shown once or repeated on 5 consecutive days for 3-to 5-year-old viewers. A comparison group watched a different preschool program one time. Viewer behavior was videotaped, and comprehension and learning of Blue's Clues content was tested. With repetition, looking at the television screen remained at a high level. Only 5-year-old boys' looking decreased. Verbal and nonverbal interactions with the program (such as answering questions and pointing at the screen) increased, especially during educational content. Comprehension improved with repetition. Episode repetition is an effective strategy for enhancing learning and program involvement for a preschool audience.

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An instructional program designed to help middle-school students with severe learning disabilities learn about story themes, and focused on enhancing ability to generalize to themes not included in the instruction, was evaluated. Ten small-group special education classrooms were randomly assigned to receive either the Theme Identification Program or a series of lessons with a traditional instruction framework. The program classrooms scored higher on concept of theme, identification of instructed themes, application of instructed themes to real-life situations, and identification of themes that were not included in the instruction. These findings indicate that students with severe learning disabilities can profit from instruction geared toward abstract higher order comprehension when it is designed according to their particular instructional requirements.

This is, we believe, the first investigation of the effects of experience with a particular program series on children's subsequent television viewing behavior and comprehension. Three-to 5-year-old, regular, experienced Blue's Clues viewers were compared to new, inexperienced viewers. In Study 1, experienced Blue's Clues viewers looked less but overtly interacted more with a new episode of Blue's Clues. This effect was most pronounced during recurrent format portions of the episode. They also showed greater comprehension of familiar content. Study 2 compared experienced and inexperienced viewers on viewing behavior and comprehension of an episode of a different series. Experienced Blue's Clues viewers looked less but overtly interacted more; there were no differences in comprehension. These results suggest that a television series can teach children a style of television viewing transferable to new episodes and to new series.