Online Games and Adolescent Reading

July 6, 2010

Video games and participatory cultures have emerged as an important force for student learning, both in and out of school. Under the right conditions, video games can promote valued forms of thinking and learning. With funding from the MacArthur Foundation, Constance Steinkuehler and colleagues are examining how students engage with reading that occurs during online videogame play. The project seeks to answer these questions: How does the reading performance of adolescents on such game-related texts compare to their performance on school-related texts? What factors contribute to differences in reading performance on game-related and school-related text? And how are game-related reading activities situated within (or against) children’s everyday literacy networks across contexts, including both school and home? More information is available here.