For years, teachers and parents have argued over the best way to teach children how to read. Some have taught children using phonics, where students learn the sounds of letters and are asked to sound out words. Others have used an immersion method, which encourages students to guess the meanings and sounds of words as they read. Although the late Harvard professor Jeanne Chall's studies suggested the phonics method was more efficient, she maintained there are advantages to both methods. Teaching children to read using subtitles allows teachers and parents to use both of these methods. Whether a child is learning her first or a subsequent language, you can use subtitles to teach her to read.

Choose a DVD. According to an article in the TESOL-Spain newsletter, one advantage of teaching using video subtitles is the presentation of cultural information to those unaware of a country's customs. If you have a large number of English language learners in your class, choose a DVD that incorporates cultural habits, such as greetings and ordering food. If your class consists of mostly native English speakers, choose a video that presents a situation with which students are familiar to ease learning. An article published in the TESOL-Spain newsletter suggests the familiar format of subtitles enhances learning.

Play a scene using subtitles for the students. According to the TESOL-Spain journal, students can better grasp vocabulary when they see and hear the words simultaneously. Instruct students to pay attention to the video and not to worry about taking notes.

Play the video a second time, using the remote to pause on the subtitles you want to emphasize. Have the students copy the word from the television screen to a vocabulary notebook. Then, rewind and play the word's subtitle and audio pronunciation again.

Practice the words in groups. Students say the words to each other and correct pronunciation, check for spelling errors in the vocabulary journal entry and use the video's context clues to guess what the word might mean. Teachers using a phonetic teaching approach can also take this opportunity to have students compare the emphasized word to others that sound similar in order to pick out individual sound patterns.