THE PROJECT
TIME: The near future
SETTING: Middle -school language arts classes around the country
SCENE: Students are playing digital games in teams, working together to overcome challenges presented in the games’ fictional worlds. The games are specifically designed to engage struggling readers and develop their literacy skills, but students of all levels are able to enjoy the games together. The classrooms are buzzing with excitement.
With the support of grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Educause, the Center for Children and Technology (CCT) is working to make that vision a reality.
THE GAMES
There are three versions of the two Wordplay Games that differ in terms of platform and content, but have identical game designs. The first version, which we have developed and field-tested for the Nintendo DSi, primarily uses vocabulary from the Academic Word List, a collection of words frequently used in academic texts. The second two versions, which we are developing for the Web, use vocabulary from middle-grades social studies and science classes.
Regardless of the platform or content, each pair of Wordplay Games is linked conceptually and shares a common narrative. The first, Code Invaders, is an individual puzzle game, and the second, Cipher Force, is a social game that encourages communication and teamwork.
GAMES & LITERACY
Portable Wordplay is a suite of digital games and classroom extension activities for struggling middle grade readers, with a focus on literacy and vocabulary comprehension skills. Our goal is to provide below-grade readers with experiences that foster reading comprehension strategies used by successful comprehenders, while simultaneously appealing to readers at all levels. The project is also designed to cultivate academic word knowledge in middle grade students.
The Common Core Standards emphasize building students’ literacy within the core content areas. But in the middle grades, many students’ reading comprehension skills are not yet adequate to the task of learning from grade-level, content-rich texts. Word games and playful experiences with language are one effective approach to building these skills, but struggling readers typically report having far fewer playful experiences with language than their peers who read at grade level, and wordplay activities do not play a prominent role in most content-area classrooms.
RESEARCH
Development of the Wordplay Games and extension activities has been shaped by ongoing formative research and pilot testing. Additionally, during October–December 2011, we conducted field tests of Code Invaders, Cipher Force, and extension activities in three schools on two coasts with five different teachers. The teachers implemented the Wordplay Games with multiple class periods, allowing us to observe roughly 400 students using the materials and to reflect with the teachers on a variety of experiences with different groups of students.