Fred Rogers

Week 1: Early Life

Character Lexicon
  • passionate: showing or caused by strong feelings or a strong belief
  • imaginative: having or showing creativity or inventiveness
  • curious: eager to know or learn something
  • diligent: having or showing care and conscientiousness in one’s work or duties
  • independent: free from outside control; not dependent on another’s authority
Comprehension Questions
  1. Fred Rogers was born on March 20th, 1928, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. (Pg 5)
  2. Without a brother or sister, Fred was always looking for ways to have fun by himself. (Pg 8)
  3. The one person Fred could always count on was his grandfather, Ding Dong. (Pg 15)
  4. The two interests that George Allen introduced Fred to were, photography and jazz. (Pg 18)
  5. Fred transferred to the music department at Rollins College. (Pg 25)
  6. Fred thought the first program he watched on television was terrible because it showed people throwing pies in each others faces and he thought it silly and a waste of time. (Pg 27)
  7. Instead of going to seminary Fred chose to find a job in the television business. (Pg 32)

Week 2: Early Work in Television

Character Lexicon
  • hopeful: feeling or inspiring optimism about a future event
  • persevering: continuing in a course of action despite difficulty or delay in achieving success
  • compassionate: feeling or showing sympathy and concern for others
  • valiant: possessing or showing courage or determination
  • empathetic: showing an ability to understand and share feelings of another
Comprehension Questions
  1. Fred’s responsibility as the floor manager at NBC was to make sure everything ran smoothly. This included telling the crew when to change sets and to give actors their cues to get onto and off stage. (Pg 35-37)
  2. Fred and Joanne Byrd got married in 1952. (Pg 41)
  3. Fred was only one of six people hired by WQED. (Pg 43)
  4. In 1966 Fred aired Misterogers’ Neighborhood, on WQED. (Pg 53)
  5. Fred wrote all the episodes and songs for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood himself. (Pg 58)
  6. Fred wanted children to look up at him as a reliable adult. (Pg 69)
  7. When he was a child, Fred’s mother had told him when something bad happened to, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” (Pg 76)

Week 3: Later Life and Legacy

Character Lexicon
  • dedicated: of a person devoted to a task or purpose; having single-minded loyalty or integrity
  • eloquent : fluent or persuasive in speaking or writing
  • genuine : truly what something is said to be; authentic
  • appreciative : feeling or showing gratitude or pleasure
  • faithful: remaining loyal or steadfast
Comprehension Questions
  1. Fred earned twenty million dollars for public television. (Pg 79)
  2. Fred believed that the most important lesson that children understood was that they didn’t have to do anything special in order to be special. They just had to be themselves. (Pg 81)
  3. Fred didn’t care that there wasn’t any television at his family’s cottage, “The Crooked House,” because apart from his own program he didn’t like television much. (Pg 85)
  4. According to Fred one of the greatest gifts you can give anybody is the gift of your honest self. (Pg 86)
  5. By 1997, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood had been on the air for twenty-nine years. (Pg 90)
  6. The final episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, aired in 2001. (Pg 95)
  7. In 2002, President George W. Bush gave Fred the Presidential Medal of Freedom. (Pg 96)