Between the Lions

Theo, Cleo, Lionel and Leona — a family of lions — run a magical library where characters pop out of books, vowels sing and words take on a life of their own. The series combines puppetry, animation and live action to help young children learn to read. For children 4 to 7 years old.

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Upcoming episodes

Previously aired episodes

Program description

Between the Lions is funded in part by a Ready To Learn cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Education through PBS.

Theo, Cleo, Lionel and Leona — a family of lions — run a magical library where characters pop out of books, vowels sing and words take on a life of their own. The series combines puppetry, animation and live action to help young children learn to read.

For children 4 to 7 years old.

Series Goals

• Dramatize the benefits of reading
• Show that learning to read and spell can be a struggle, but a worthwhile one
• Show that there are many reasons to write
• Introduce new vocabulary words and their meanings
• Show how words work through phonemics, alphabetic principle and spelling conventions

Between the Lions gives young viewers a chance to have meaningful and manageable reading experiences by using key words in simple, decodable, connected text onscreen. The program also reinforces high-frequency "sight" words to help children become more comfortable with reading.

Helping Kids Prepare for School

The series aims to support children's early reading skills by:

• modeling reading, writing and speaking skills
• motivating children to read and write
• introducing children to phonemics and letter-sound relationships
• acquainting children with a wide range of texts in different media

Channel guide