Early on, researchers used randomized trials to evaluate the effects of Sesame Street. In one evaluation, the group of families assigned to the treatment group had their televisions hooked up so they could access the show more effectively.7 The researchers found, over a period of two years, improvements in various measures of school readiness, including vocabulary. The effects of Sesame Street seem to be long-lived. A more recent study looked back at the early years of the show and compared the kids who got early access to it—because of better TV reception—to those who got later access. The
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