St. Tammany News

To call attention to the importance of building early childhood literacy skills, a program called "Between the Lions" will be presented in Covington.

Pride patriarch Theo and his cub Leona will be in Covington Sept. 6-8 for live appearances at the Chick-fil-A Restaurant at 912 N. U.S. Highway 190 for the last leg of a four-city tour designed to reach nearly four million people each week nationally. The program begins at 6:30 p.m.

Characters from the popular children's show "Between the Lions," set to visit Covington's Chick-fil-A.

"As we head into a new school year, this is an ideal time to do a segment about the importance of early literacy skills and how parents can encourage their children to hone their reading skills," said Anne Driscoll of Teak Media Communications.

"Between the Lions" is a PBS sponsored children's puppet show designed to promote reading. It won six Daytime Emmy awards between 2001 and 2004.

"Research has proven that 'Between the Lions' really does help children learn to read," said Chris Cerf, a former member of "Sesame Street" creative team.

This, he said, is contrary to what is widely believed about television being a detriment to reading.

"Between the Lions" focuses entire episodes on chosen letters and sounds, key words and use of entire sentences throughout an episode. Every episode contains short stories read by the Lions family and silly songs that sum up the rules of English spelling and pronunciation.

Independent university studies conducted over the past four years show the programming improves early childhood literacy. Researchers found that those who watched the show developed fundamental reading skills that included identifying letters in the alphabet, identifying numbers and matching letters to sounds.

Characters popular to the show that will be at the performance location are father and daughter characters Lionel and Leona.