Mythbusting claims that same-language subtitles improve children’s reading

What if improving children’s reading were as simple as turning on the subtitles? That’s the promise behind the high-profile UK campaign Turn on the Subtitles (TOTS). The idea is compelling and seems effortless to implement – it doesn’t cost much and fits into habits families already have. It has quickly attracted support from celebrities, journalists, media stakeholders, and governments. But how many of TOTS’s claims are actually backed up by experimental evidence?

We spent the past three years in a project funded by the Nuffield Foundation looking at the evidence, and testing the claims of the campaign experimentally. We found no evidence that same-language subtitles improve children’s reading. You can find an accessible report of our findings here. Below, we examine the main myths promoted by TOTS and repeated in the media.

Reading along with same language subtitles is automatic amongst both adults and children. [Turn on the Subtitles]

Short answer: No.

Study that tracked eye movements of 180 British primary‑school children while they were watching movies with same‑language subtitles found that attention to subtitles is not automatic: younger readers mostly ignored them, and meaningful engagement only emerged once children could read about one word per second (typically by the end of Year 2/Year 3). In other words, subtitle reading depends on reading proficiency, so the claim “automatic for everyone” is incorrect. Looking at subtitles may be automatic for adults but it’s definitely not for emerging readers.

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Subtitles are particularly helpful for children just learning how to read and early readers. [Slate]

Short answer: No.

The same eye‑tracking study concludes that subtitles appear and disappear too quickly for beginner readers to follow. Many 5-6-year-old children skipped or ignored most subtitle lines. The conclusion is straightforward: subtitles are unlikely to help in the initial years of learning to read. Once children become fluent readers, subtitles might offer additional reading practice, but that is definitely not the case for early readers. 

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Subtitles lead to significantly better outcomes, especially among those who struggle with reading. [Forbes]

Short answer: No.

In the same eye‑tracking study, weaker readers were less likely to look at subtitles, and if they don’t engage with the text on screen, subtitles won’t help much. Struggling readers benefit more from evidence‑based instruction and guided text reading. 

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Subtitles promote reading fluency. [Forbes]

Short answer: No.

A randomised controlled trial with 127 children in Years 2-3 compared effects of watching TV with or without same-language subtitles for six weeks (about 66 hours of viewing on average). Results showed that both groups of children improved over the six week period, probably because of the effects of normal schooling. There was no added benefit from subtitles on reading fluency, and no benefit of more hours of watching with subtitles. This causal test showed that subtitles do not promote reading fluency in children. 

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If you turn on the subtitles, then in just a year kids would ‘read’ the same number of words that are in all the Harry Potter books, Narnia and Lord of the Rings books as well as everything Roald Dahl wrote.

[The Times, Turn on the Subtitles, BBC, Slate – with minor variations in the book list]

Short answer: Maybe in numbers. Not in quality.

Counting words in subtitled shows may sound impressive, but it doesn’t equal book reading. Research has found that the language of television is less sophisticated than the language of books, so the vocabulary and syntactic diversity, as well as depth and sophistication aren’t comparable. Even if subtitles add some print exposure for fluent readers, they can’t substitute or count as book reading.

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Same-language subtitles can double the chance of your child leaving school as a proficient reader. [Turn on the Subtitles]

Short answer: Probably not.

The oft‑quoted “double the chance” phrase originates from a study of adults and children in India. This study is often talked about as if it were a randomised controlled trial where some participants were given subtitles and others weren’t. However, that wasn’t what happened in this study. Instead, participants were  assigned to the subtitle or no-subtitle groups based on their retrospective self-reported viewing of one subtitled programme. In a design like this, any differences could just reflect pre-existing biases (like who had a TV at home or other socio-economic advantages) rather than an effect of subtitles. It could also be that people with superior reading skills were more likely to choose to watch a subtitled programme. By contrast, a randomised controlled trial in the UK found no extra gain in reading fluency of viewing with subtitles. Until robust causal evidence shows otherwise, the “doubling” claim should be treated as promotional, not scientific.

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Same-language subtitles strengthen the connection between spoken and written language by prompting children to read along with the displayed text. [World Literacy Foundation]

Short answer: We don’t know.

It’s a plausible idea, especially for fluent readers who look at subtitles, but it hasn’t been demonstrated. Existing eye-tracking evidence shows that beginner readers rarely look at subtitles, and even when children do attend, they skip over half of the words. What’s missing are studies that measure whether children fixate on specific words when those words are spoken. Until studies answer this question, the speech-print linking claim remains a hypothesis, not an established effect.

A particular font can help children read better.

[Turn on the Subtitles: 95% of children read better with Caterpillar Captions compared to regular subtitles]

Short answer: No evidence for this.

Specialised fonts designed to improve reading (‘dyslexia’ fonts) show no reliable advantage in reading speed or accuracy over common fonts. In other words, letter shapes alone don’t deliver measurable gains. Claims that Caterpillar Captions improve reading for 95% of children are, to our knowledge, not supported by independent, peer-reviewed evidence in the public domain. Until such evidence emerges from independent studies, font claims should be treated with caution.

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