How Reading Games Help
The more enjoyable a task, the more likely it is that a kid will want to engage in and complete that task. What seems like commonsense has the weight of research backing it as well: Educators and researchers have found that a student’s enjoyment of learning activities directly relates to their desire and willingness to learn. The more enjoyable a learning activity is, the more likely that a student will engage in that activity. Mary Poppins was right: “In every job that must be done there is an element of fun. You find the fun and snap! The job's a game!”
Reading is no exception. Reading games make learning to read a fun and enjoyable activity. But why is it so important for kids to enjoy learning? The more enjoyable a learning task is, the more motivation students have to continue engaging in that activity. And here’s why it matters: the more time a student spends on a certain task, the more the student learns. This is certainly the case for reading and its relation to reading games. Reading success is directly related to the amount of time a student spends on the activity of reading.
The most effective kids’ reading games are enjoyable for students to engage with from the start, and increase their motivation to continue completing and succeeding the reading activities.
The Reading Eggs and Reading Eggspress programmes offer kids the opportunity to engage in a research-based reading programme that is also fun. The programmes use a variety of game-like activities that are, in fact, the means of instruction. The Reading Eggs programme helps kids develop the reading skills needed to become strong readers. These reading skills include:
Phonemic awareness
Phonics skills
Fluency in reading
Vocabulary building
Text comprehension.
The Reading Eggs programme combines all of these reading skills into an engaging and kid-friendly learning world which kids enjoy interacting with. From the first moment that a child uses Reading Eggs, they are immersed in a learning environment that is fun and enjoyable to use.
The very first lessons for pre-readers and very early readers take place in a child-friendly, child-safe virtual world, moving the kids from a zoo, to a playground to a theme park. Kids love following the maps in this virtual world, and moving their character along the “path” which is easy seen on the screen, and looks not unlike a board from a board game.
Kids enjoy the fun journey that their character takes in these three worlds, the zoo, the playground, and the theme park, and parents and teachers love the fact that each world is packed with 40 lessons of fantastic research-based content.
But the reading game lessons aren’t the only fun element of the program. The Reading Eggs programmes encourages kids to complete learning activities and continue working through the programme by increasing their motivations to do so through providing age-appropriate reward systems. These reward systems are high-interest, compelling and child-centred, and are activated each time a child completes a learning activity or a lesson.
When kids complete each Reading Eggs activity, they are rewarded with Golden Eggs. These eggs get deposited into their personal Eggy Banks for them to “spend” later on games, clothes for their Reading Eggs character, and furnishings for their characters online home. This is a rich, multi-dimensional reward system that encourages a high level of interest and participation from kids. As students watch the Golden Eggs land in their Eggy Banks, and watch the eggs grow in number, they can see the clear link between their rewards and their work in the Reading Eggs programme.
The game-like activities are integral to the Reading Eggs programme, and help kids develop motivation to learn. The activities encourage kids to play as they learn, and, when kids succeed (which the programme ensures that they do experience consistent success—which also motivates them to keep engaging with the programme), they are rewarded with prizes.
The playful elements of the programme are integrated into every lesson and suit the learning style of children, who learn best through play. Reading Eggs and Reading Eggspress use a wide range of short, highly-motivational kids’ reading games that offer consistent rewards, which encourages even the most reluctant readers to actively participate.
