Why “Charlie and the Alphabet” and Similar Videos Cause So Many Kids to Shut Down – And How to Prevent It

 

Early wrong input is hard to undo. Claude Bernard saw it in the 1800s. Thorndike proved it in 1913. Charlie Munger explained why the mind closes the door.

For years I have been warning about instructional videos that teach consonant sounds with extraneous “uh”. These videos don’t just confuse children — they cause many to disengage completely from learning to read.

 

The Damage from “Charlie and the Alphabet”

Charlie and the Alphabet on BabyTV is broadcast in over 100 countries and watched by millions of toddlers. Marketed as “entertainment, not educational,” it still becomes their first and strongest model of letter sounds. Toddlers repeatedly hear consonants taught with added “uh” — “cuh-a-tuh” instead of crisp /k/ /a/ /t/. When they later enter school and struggle to blend, many simply shut down.

BabyTV has brushed off my emails with the standard reply that it is only entertainment. But when millions of very young children watch it repeatedly, it functions as powerful early phonics input — with lasting consequences.

What the Experts Recognised Long Ago

Claude Bernard (1813–1878) captured the core problem more than two centuries ago:  “It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.”

Edward Thorndike (1913) formalised this idea in his Law of Primacy: what is learned first creates the strongest impression. It is far more difficult to unlearn or correct faulty initial learning than to teach it correctly from the start.

Charlie Munger explained the psychological mechanism with his memorable analogy: the human mind is like the human egg. Once one sperm gets in, it shuts down so the next one can’t. The first strong impression “fertilises” the mind and closes the door to conflicting later input.

This is exactly why many children who receive correct pure-sound teaching in Grade 1 or later still struggle or remain disengaged. The early confusing input (from BabyTV, YouTube videos, or inconsistent preschool teaching) has already taken hold.

The Result

The vast majority of reading failure is preventable. 

Only a small subset (roughly 3–5%) may have deeper neurobiological challenges that require more intensive support. 

Most children labelled as having “phonological processing deficits” or dyslexia are actually victims of wrong first input that does not reconcile with later teaching.

 

What Needs to Happen

Parents: Carefully check every early alphabet video and app. Demand crisp, pure consonant sounds with no added “uh”. 

Producers (BabyTV and others): Correct or remove misleading episodes instead of hiding behind “it’s just entertainment.” 

Teacher training: Emphasise precise phoneme articulation and the critical importance of first input.

 

As I have written before: First we need to teach the teachers before they can teach the kids.

Prevent rather than cure.