Thanks to an action video game, children have improved their concentration and reading skills in a few weeks.
- The video game did not include any violent situation, and was suitable for young children.
- The beneficial effects on reading skills were still valid after 18 months.
Video games are used in principle to relax, but they also allow us to learn! This is the finding of a research team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE). With scientists from the University of Trento in Italy, she tested the effects of a video game on children’s reading skills. In the specialist journal Nature Human Behaviorthey explain that in a few weeks, the children were able to read better.
Why care about video games?
Daphné Bavelier, professor in the Psychology Section of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences (FPSE) at UNIGE, reminds us that reading is not just about transforming letters into sound. For example, it requires “know how to move your gaze on the sheet” or “use working memory to link words together in a coherent sentence”. “These other requested skills, such as vision, deployment of attention on the page, working memory or even cognitive flexibility, are known to be improved by action video games.“, continues Angela Pasqualotto, first author of this study.
A game created especially for the study
To test this hypothesis, a video game was created. It combines action video games with mini-games that mobilize different executive functions that the child uses during reading. “The universe of this game is an alternate world in which the child, accompanied by his Raku, a flying creature, must advance and carry out different missions to save the planet”, explains Angela Pasqualotto. 150 Italians aged 8 to 12 were recruited to test the video game. Before starting the trial, everyone took exams to assess their reading skills. “First, we tested the children’s ability to read words, non-words and paragraphs and we carried out an attention test which measures their attentional control, an aspect that we know is trained by children. action video games”says Daphne Bavelier.
VS action game. programming game
Two groups of children were formed, the first group played the new video game developed by the team, and the second group Scratch, which teaches children to program. “These two games solicit attentional control and executive functions, but in different ways“, specify the researchers in a communicated. All of the children played one or another game for two hours in a school setting over a six-week period. Shortly after, the scientists retested the two groups of children. “We found an improvement in attentional control in children who played the action video game 7 times greater than that obtained for the control group“, underlines Angela Pasqualotto. The scientists also observed a marked improvement in reading: in terms of speed, but also in the reduction of the number of mistakes, while no improvement was noted for the control group. This game must now be adapted into German, French and English, to be tested with other groups of children.
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