Video games helps improve reading?

Video games improve childrens reading skills….The video game Dance Dance Revolution, where you try to match the program by dancing on four buttons.

The before and after results of the test and control group remained the same except…

“...those who played Dance Dance Revolution did slightly better with so-called receptive coding skills, the ability to immediately recall a word or series of numbers. This type of testing indicates greater focus and attention, a key issue for children with ADHD. The more times the kids played the game, the better they did.”

It seems by playing Dance Dance Revolution the area that of the brain that relates to memory is strengthened.

Could This Help Adults?

The question is, could such a technique also help adults who have difficulty remembering and understanding what they read? By default a better memory of what you’ve read gives you better understanding too.

I think it could since the brain has demonstrated itself to plastic and it does adapt and learn over time. It is a matter of putting it to work. The kids did about an hour a week. When they did more they showed greater improvement.

Rhythm

The results are interesting because it relates in many ways to something “Nem Fox in her book Reading Magic how your child can learn to read before school - and other read aloud miracles, published 2001 Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd” found is important to teach children, Nursery rhymes, nonsense poems and stories similar to those created by Dr Seuss’s. She found children who never learned to sing or say rhymes had the greatest difficulty with reading. While they may slowly see the words they don’t understand the meaning of what they are reading.

The relationship I see in the article and Mem Foxes idea is that both have rhythm. The poems, nursery rhymes and even Dr Seuss’s books can be put to music. Music that holds a tempo is easy to plonk into the memory and the words simply go along with it.

Who can forget Twinkle Twinkle Little Star? And you probably learned it in kindergarten. Then it was just to keep us busy but it had benefits. Adults are not the only ones who lead busy lives these days. Children have more to learn and many more things want their attention. TV, Video, Internet, and friends. Learning words and numbers in Kindergarten means there is much less time for play. The kindergarten teacher is no longer the early school baby sitter keeping the children occupied with paint, stories, song and games of Simon Says.

They hardly teach nursery rhymes anymore and there are very few children’s books with them.

It seems this video game may be need to take up where those childish nursery rhymes has left off.

What About the Adult Reader Experiencing Difficulty?

How can this be useful to the adult reader who has difficulty remembering and understanding what they read?

Back to basics. Grab the nursery rhyme and rhyming books. Also check out Dr Seuss. Use the excuse to read them aloud to your pre school aged kids or borrow some if you have to. You are picking up training you missed out on.

And if you don’t want to play Dance Dance Revolution, it’s a game where you get some exercise too (Which other research has also shown helps memory and learning), consider similar games where you try to repeat the music back to the computer using the computer keyboard instead of jumping around. If you happen to have ADHD the fun of physical movement can help you to quickly refocus on your task.

The article indicates that study is continuing. To read it for yourself follow this link