Much more of your early childhood education may have been brought to you by the letter "S" or the number "11" than you might have thought.

At a time when academics and lawmakers are embracing the importance of preschool education more than ever, a new study from University of Maryland’s Melissa Kearney and Wellesley College’s Phillip Levine finds that toddlers may achieve many of the same educational benefits by tuning into Sesame Street.

A staple of children's TV for over four decades, the vibrant cast of furry and feathered muppets that populate the idyllic New York City street have helped generations of Americans sound through words and count to 10. But the paper suggests that the long-running series may have left with its viewers more than just nostalgic memories.

Researchers found was that toddlers who watched the show — especially African American children, boys, and kids from low-income areas — were much more likely to keep up with an appropriate grade level for their age.

In fact, kids who watched Sesame Street were 14% less likely to be behind in school — a benefit comparable to that of Head Start, a preschool program for low-income areas.

Decades of research shows that preschool education can have a pivotal snowball effect on children's lives — particularly those in disadvantaged areas. Kids who start kindergarten behind the curve are more likely to lag behind their peers in later years and grow discouraged.

That's why economists often point to expanding preschool education in poor areas as a high-return fix for narrowing income and racial gaps in education. The show's power to educate comes in its ability to tell a good story, according to the researchers. The engaging sketches somewhat subtly wrap in some preschool-level curriculum on reading, math and life lessons in a way that doesn't bog down the entertainment value.

Take, for example, this Jurassic World parody in which Cookie Monster's confectionary theme park goes awry. The sketch has a verbal and moral education embedded: It teaches kids new words and imparts a lesson about self control.

To find a reliable group of non-Sesame Street watchers, the economists behind the study took advantage of a quirk in the way the show was broadcast. Back in the days of bunny-ear TV sets, public programming was aired on two signals: VHF and its lower-quality counterpart UHF.

In many cities, the show was only available on one or the other, which left an estimated two thirds of American households unable to tune in when the show first aired in 1969.

That makes it all the more impressive that the show enjoyed Super Bowl-level popularity among toddlers in 1970: around one-third of those aged 2 to 5 are estimated to have watched the show.

Those technical difficulties would prove a huge boon for economists. In effect, it set up a handy, ready-made control group for researchers to test its effect on education in what economists call a "natural experiment."

The results are not to say that following the daily exploits of Sesame Street's residents should stand in for actually attending preschool.

Rather, the researchers say that Sesame Street can enhance preschool learning in the same way that Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), free accredited college classes oftentimes from highly respected universities, can supplement college classes.

MOOCs have stirred controversy with some college faculty who claim that they reduce a professor to "glorified teaching assistant," as one San Jose State professor put it in an open letter.

But the study's authors see the Sesame Street effect as a vindication of TV and online media's value as a secondary tool for learning. They hope that their findings might encourage the development of more technology aimed at spreading preschool education to disadvantaged areas.

"These findings raise the exciting possibility that TV and electronic media more generally can be leveraged to address income and racial gaps in children's school readiness," Kearney said in a statement.