When Reading Rainbow ended its 26-year run in 2009, it left behind decades of preschoolers for whom its theme song will forever surface waves of nostalgia:
Take a look, it's in a book, a reading rainbow.
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The PBS program was cut because nobody would fund it. But John Grant, who was at the time in charge of content at Reading Rainbow's home station, told NPR that a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming was also to blame.
He said the Bush administration believed in funding programs that taught children how to read, with tools like phonics and spelling. Reading Rainbow taught kids why to read -- and encouraged them to pick up books.
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Levar Burton, Reading Rainbow's executive producer and host, thinks the latter goal is still relevant. And he plans to use digital media to bring the show back.
"There is a brand new generation of kids who could definitely use the kind of spark and inspiration Reading Rainbow provided where actually becoming a reader is concerned," Burton told Mashable. "As far as I can tell, reading will never go out of style, and neither will good old fashioned storytelling."
Burton began talking about the show's resurrection almost immediately after it ended. In February of 2009, he tweeted he would move forward with a new version of Reading Rainbow: "webisodes for adults." Whatever that meant, unfortunately, the plan never surfaced.
In September, Burton launched RRKids, which promises to resurrect Reading Rainbow for kids in a multimedia fashion.
The site currently sells episodes of Reading Rainbow, but Burton, who is also famous for his roles in Roots and Star Trek: the Next Generation, has other products in mind. The first: a mobile app.
"The center-point of the App is books," Burton told Mashable. "Wonderful, lightly enhanced digital books for children. However we're also very interested in delivering an enriching experience to kids, much like classic Reading Rainbow did on TV."
He calls the app "the first offering in a game plan" that will also include DVDs and streaming of classic Reading Rainbow episodes. According to the RRKids website, it will deliver 100s of books with a "Reading Rainbow-like" experience, though Burton didn't expand upon what that entails in app form.
Last week, Burton rallied his 1.74 million Twitter followers to help take the @readingrainbow handle back from a squatter; Twitter gave it to him within hours. The account will help the promote Reading Rainbow app.
Reading Rainbow was the third longest-running children's program in PBS history, outlasted only by Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. During its run, it won more than 24 Emmys. It also witnessed a decline in reading time in the United States during the same period.
According to a 2007 study by the National Endowment for the Arts, the number of 13-year-olds who were daily readers dropped 14 percent between 1984 and 2004. The percentage of 17-year-olds who were non-readers doubled.
At a time when the population is relying less upon reading and, in some ways, even television, a classic television show about books seems like the definitive vehicle for nostalgia.
With new digital packaging that Burton hopes will appeal to the wired generation, he is hoping to restore Reading Rainbow's educational value as well.
"Every day of my life someone comes up to me and tells me about the impact the show had on them growing up," Burton says. "it's no secret that our educational system is no longer the platinum standard on the world stage that it once was. This is simply my way of continuing to do what I've always done, just in a different medium."
Image courtesy of GPN/Nebraska ETV Network and WNED Buffalo
This story originally published on Mashable here.
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