''ColorSounds'' was a national

music video A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...

program televised on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

stations in the mid-1980s. ''ColorSounds'' taught viewers how to read and speak

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

creatively through the use of music videos. In this series, a music video, the same one that would appear on channels such as

MTV MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...

and

VH1 VH1 (originally an initialism for Video Hits One) is an American basic cable television network that launched on January 1, 1985, and is currently owned by the MTV Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global's networks division based in New Y ...

is presented, with the lyrics shown

karaoke is a type of interactive entertainment system usually offered in nightclubs and bars, where people sing along to pre-recorded accompaniment using a microphone. Its musical content is an instrumental rendition of a well-known popular song. I ...

-style on the bottom of the screen, with words associated with the video's focus highlighted in various colors. For example, if a music video featured

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

s, every noun in the lyrics would be highlighted in red; accordingly, if another music video featured vowels sounds such as " a" all the a's would be highlighted in gray. ColorSounds presented an effective learning program through its multimodal approach to teaching and learning language. In addition, ''ColorSounds'' also noted and corrected spelling mistakes and poor grammar in the original lyrics. The show had no host, announcer or theme songs—the topics to be covered in that particular episode is displayed silently as a static caption at the start of the program or segment. ''Color Sounds'' was packaged in two formats—a 30-minute version for general PBS scheduling, and a 15-minute version for use during in-school telecasts.

References

PBS original programming 1980s American music television series 1984 American television series debuts 1985 American television series endings Reading and literacy television series {{US-music-tv-prog-stub