A New Kind of Reading Rainbow

A little over two years ago, PBS announced the ending of the beloved television show Reading Rainbow. Now, host LeVar Burton is bringing it back in a new medium, according to GalleyCat:

Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton has raised funds for a follow-up to his beloved public television show, a series of smartphone and tablet enhanced eBooks for kids. His new company is called RRKidz.

The new website includes Burton’s trademark slogan from the show: “Coming Soon … but you don’t have to take my word for it.” Burton summarized the show with a twitter hashtag: “Reading Rainbow for today’s connected kids.”

Here’s more from FishbowlLA: “Fifteen months after indicating to New York Times columnist David Pogue at a Macworld event that he was raising money for a start-up, actor LeVar Burton is fully focused on the twain of education and enhanced children’s e-books. He tells Venture Beat that his company RRKidz has got $3 million in seed funding and is compiling a library of 300 iPad and Smartphone titles, with roughly 50 of those to be voiced by Burton himself. The actor is partnered on the project with Buffalo’s WNED-TV, rights-holder to the 1983-2006 PBS series Reading Rainbow.”

See the original post HERE

I'm impressed and excited by Burton's initiative here. It makes me happy to see that he's so much more than just a host and really invested in Reading Rainbow's goals and mission statement.

Yay for reading!

RIP Reading Rainbow

PBS officials just announced the end of an era, according to bizjournals.com. Reading Rainbow (1983), the beloved children's reading program, will be airing its final episodes at noon on Monday, August 31 after nearly 30 years of encouraging children to read.

For most children of my generation, Reading Rainbow was an after-school staple like Handisnacks and juice boxes. I, for one, was ecstatic whenever the theme song would begin, my little face lit up in a smile as if someone just shoved Lite-Brite pegs in my mouth (another fantastic and sadly dying pastime).

"Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high,Take a look, it's in a book." — Reading Rainbow

You know the one I mean. That rainbow swept across the screen and made me feel normal for being such a bookworm, even at such a young age. LeVar's adventures gave me confidence to keep turning the pages, to beg my mother to take me to the library yet again, to go through the little Scholastic Book Fair catologs with such determination that you'd think I was taking the SATs. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

NPR's Ben Calhoun spoke with John Grant, the man in charge of programming content for Reading Rainbow's home station WNED Buffalo, to find out just what happened ('Reading Rainbow' Reaches Its Final Chapter').

In a nutshell, "PBS, CPB and the Department of Education put significant funding toward programming that would teach kids how to read — but that's not what Reading Rainbow was trying to do."

"Reading Rainbow taught kids why to read," Grant says. "You know, the love
of reading — [the show] encouraged kids to pick up a book and to read."

At least Reading Rainbow will still be available to educators, so the groundbreaking show won't be completely forgotten. But it's a sad day either way when encouraging children to read is no longer relevent enough to the media to keep a legendary, educational program on the air. It seems the mentality is to just teach them how and send them on their way. They never have to pick up a book again!

Just Reach for the Rainbow, my friends. Reach for the Rainbow.