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TV411

Program 11 (#111)

Salsa musician Rubén Blades performs some of his songs and talks about his writing process. An El Paso mother enters the Even Start program and learns ways to bring her family closer together through reading and writing. Then Question Man shares tips on taking tests.

Education Record Rights: Fixed expiration date - Sep 01, 2010.

This show aired...

Program Description: TV411 focuses on parenting, money matters, and health. Subjects include reading comprehension, research techniques, writing to others, filling out forms, calculating percentages, using fractions, test taking, and more. The series teaches life skills in a manageable, lively format. Fictional and real-life personalities host segments: Dennis Franz from NYPD Blue explains how to read a newspaper article. A WNBA star and new mom offers advice on time management. Famous authors share their love of reading and writing. A cast of entertaining characters covers the math and literacy topics of everyday life. And real adult learners tell how they acquired literacy skills to become better parents, employees, and lifelong learners.

All Upcoming Episodes

  • Navigating The System (#125)

    Tips on how to avoid credit card debt from the Calculating Women; a profile of a New York man who, despite a reading disability, teaches others how to pass written driver's license exams; and advice from Laverne on over-the-counter medicine labels and prescription dosages. Three Harlem Globetrotters demonstrate how to read a world map.

  • Family Matters (#126)

    An African immigrant struggles to learn to read and raise a family in America, Laverne helps a young mother child-proof her home, and an African-American woman researches her family roots over the Internet and in the field. Hip-hop star Doug E. Fresh teaches parents and children how to rap while they read.

  • Writing (#127)

    Question Man tackles sentence fragments in a grammatically correct dream, poet Jimmy Baca conducts a dynamic writing workshop with steelworkers, and Laverne helps a co-worker create an outline for a GED essay on disciplining children. A peek behind the scenes at the popular Bernie Mac Show looks in on a professional brainstorming session.

  • Express Yourself (#128)

    Newly minted writer Kathi Wellington tells stories from her days as a steelworker, and origami artist June Sakamoto gives a geometry lesson. Parents and children interpret art and symbolism at the Philadelphia Museum, and Broadway performers from Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam demonstrate that writing poetry can be both literary and exuberant.

  • Math for Life (#129)

    A drummer and the chorus line of Forty-Second Street demonstrate fractions in action, a carpenter shows how math is critical to her work, Mets pitcher Al Leiter illustrates the perimeter of a baseball diamond, and Laverne explains percentages and multiple markdowns for bargain hunters.

  • Media (#130)

    Question Man gets the scoop from a reporter on how to read between the lines, and "Straight to the Source" looks over the shoulder of political cartoonist Don Margolies as he creates his caricatures. DC United soccer star Nick Rimando shows how he uses computers and the Internet while he's on the road, and the book club visits a special class in New York where workers learn about the history of the Depression through Dorothea Lange's celebrated photographs.

Past Episodes

These episodes of TV411 aired in the last few months on Iowa Public Television.

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