Opinion: Video games get kids to read without them realizing it

Literacy is easily one of the things parents worry about most. They wonder if their children are learning the fundimentals at school, if they are keeping up with their peers and, perhaps most importantly, if they’re learning to enjoy reading, and aren’t just doing it because they’re forced to. Scholastic has created The 39 Clues, a book series that combines books with an online game. Kids are forced to read the books in order make progress in the video game. In the UK, Nintendo and Genius Sonority Inc. have released 100 Classic Book Collection, a budget-priced DS application that contains 100 legendary novels and plays from authors like Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare and Mark Twain.

While both of these steps are interesting methods and approaches to provide a new way to look at reading material (especially 100 Classic Book Collection, which hopefully will come to the US), its unnecessary. If parents pick the right games for their children, they’ll find the kids are alreadying substantial amounts of text, without even realizing it.

For example, a typical RPG like Pokemon, Final Fantasy or even Legend of Zelda or Animal Crossing require an extensive amount of reading to progress and understand the story…