The Mirror recently posted an article positing games as the reason for a decline in reading. The "research" seemed to indicate that because a rise in video game playing was taking place at the same time as a perceived drop in reading time. But what if ... you read while playing? Like you do in every video game?In a Guardian blog entry, Trigger Happy author Stephen Poole discusses exactly that. You guys are aware of this, having actually played a video game (unlike most of the game "experts" that the mainstream media listens to) but games have lots of words in them. One specific example: the Phoenix Wright games, each of which "contains at least as much text as your average children's novel." For that matter, they are novels. Does reading not count when it's done on a screen? If anything, you're constantly tested on the information you've just read, meaning that a game like Phoenix Wright could significantly help with reading skill. If the games weren't about murders, that is. They aren't appropriate for the earliest readers, let's say.
But The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is entirely kid-friendly and jam-packed with text. As Poole says, "A child playing this game is probably more passionate about reading its prose for clues and taking detailed notes, than he is about doing his homework." Kids passionate about reading? But they should be reading instead!
Poole sums up the post with a sentiment that is close to our own feelings: that literacy is not decreasing due to new technologies, but rather expanding into different and varied forms that aren't always on paper, and aren't always in the form of insulting children's literature.
