Every Parent Matters

1. Interest.

I found school, 40 years ago already, to be boring; my excuse for poor performance.  The use of one dimension low-tech teaching resources did little to help. To get kids interested they need a challenge that is fun and absorbing.  The subject area needs to be dynamic; “Explosive maths games – 100 things you never knew about quadratic equations” would hold more interest that “Maths Text Book Volume 3.”

Practical applications and realism help improve the relevance of the subject.  In physics; what happens when a jet engine goes into goes into reheat?  Massive increase in thrust and acceleration, plus a massive increase in fuel usage! How far can you fly on reheat? What vehicle weighing 20 tons can accelerate from zero to 175 miles per hour in 2.5 seconds? Eat your heart out “Top Gear” it isn’t a car – it’s an aircraft being launched by the catapult on an aircraft carrier, but how does it work?

2. Fashionable

Got to look the part.  Needs great product name, impact packaging and user benefits. Games that let kids “beat up” their parents in a game whilst improving and testing their knowledge and dexterity.

3. Street Cred.

Needs to attract friends, relatives and schoolmates in a must-have game to let them collectively join a particular challenge. Must be reasonable cost so not to exclude kids in low income families ( or funded by the educational authority) and offer a challenge with a purpose. Could replace some of the £20 billion spent in the UK every Christmas on plastic junk toys and games that are played once.

4. Modern Technology

Develop educational games that can be played on host of equipment: Cell phones, MP3, Netbooks, Mum or Dad’s last years Blackberry, Pc’s, Mac’s. Ideally all platforms should all have access to the same game title.

5. SCORM

Include SCORM, the Sharable Content Object Reference Model, is a technical specification that governs how online training (or “e-learning”) is created and delivered to learners. Developed by the US military it forms the basis of a common monitoring system that can be used by a school and parents to check progress by children using educational video games linked to the system.

6. Parental Support.

Getting parents involved by setting them to support or even spar with their children. Eighty percent of a child’s academic success is influenced by what they do at home! Get parents interaction by resetting the game, increase the challenge rating or add extra facilities. Parents could also monitor performance using an in built appraisal of the child’s achievement.( More in item 10)

7. Subject Area

The curriculum needs constant adjustment to capture changes in technology, global developments and career opportunities. The internet, email and many careers didn’t exist when children now entering the job market first started school. Similarly many careers have ceased to exist. The world needs more engineers and scientists. Some good scientific games can stimulate and develop interest tailored to future career prospects.

8. Peer Support

Children learn a huge amount from other children – who else taught them to use a mobile phone?  Interactive educational games such as math games can attract great support from other children. We  just need to give them the focal point to encourage this support. Email, MSN and text can provide an almost instant help desk.

9. Feedback.

Create spirit of competition through educational games linked to class, school, district, county, regional and national league tables.

Update the challenge, create new ideas and gain feedback from other users.

10. School Interface

Replace the report card, or annual parent’s night with dynamic performance feedback linking parent, child and school. Using technology to measure homework performance without the teacher having to laboriously mark assignments. Spell checking, grammar, maths checking can be automated and feed into a summary report with performance graphs giving immediate assistance to the child.

Summary:

Teachers are constantly being pulled from pillar to post. Compiling reports and marking homework consumes an extraordinary amount of time and effort. Streamlining the job using technology to interface with the next generation of educational games will encourage learning outside school. It will also allow teachers more time to get creative.

The assiduous onset of global warming, reducing oil stocks conspire to threaten the world that will ultimately pass to future generations to resolve. Our school children need teaching resources to be groomed on the significance of alternative energy sources, and receive our apologies for getting it so wrong.

The International Energy Agency projects that the world’s electrical power generating capacity will increase to nearly 5.8 million megawatts by the year 2020, up from about 3.3 million in 2000. However, the world’s supply of fossil fuels – our current main source of electricity – will start to run out from the years 2020 to 2060, according to the petroleum industry’s best analysts.

Unlike fossil fuels, renewable energy sources will never run out. In one day, the sunlight which reaches the earth produces enough energy to meet the world’s current power requirements for eight years.

On a global average, each square metre of land is exposed to enough sunlight to produce 1,700 kWh of power every year. The average output is between 850 kWh/m2 in Northern Europe, 1,200 kWh/m2 in Central Europe and 1,200-2,000 kWh/m2 in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean. Only a percentage of the potential held by renewable resources is technically accessible. According to scientists and the solar industry, acknowledging the current state of technology, this percentage is still enough to provide just under six times more power than the world currently requires. Nature offers a variety of options for producing renewable energy. It is mainly a question of how to convert sunlight, wind, biomass or water into electricity, heat or power as efficiently, environmentally friendly, and cost-effectively as possible.

Renewable energy technologies, which have a positive impact for our environment, include wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and organic bio-energy. These are a lot friendlier to the environment than conventional energy technologies which rely on fossil fuels. Fossil fuels contribute significantly to many environmental problems – greenhouse gases, air pollution, water and soil contamination – while renewable energy sources contribute very little or none at all. Greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrocarbons, and chlorofluorocarbons) surround the Earth’s atmosphere like a clear thermal blanket allowing the sun’s warming rays in and trapping the heat close to the Earth’s surface. This natural greenhouse effect keeps the Earth’s average surface temperature at about 33°C (60°F). But scientists believe the increased use of fossil fuels has significantly increased greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide, creating an enhanced greenhouse effect known as global warming. Both pollution and global warming pose major health risks to humans as this contributes to lung disease, including asthma, lung cancer and respiratory infections. A significant global effort in clean energy technology research is needed to develop, collect, store and deliver energy efficiently without harming our planet.

Securing our energy holds many political problems, especially since the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. Foreign oil dependence has resurfaced carrying significant political and economic risks. This conventional energy source is vulnerable to political instabilities, trade disputes, embargoes and other disruptions.

Because renewable supplies are predictable and abundant, they can help stabilize energy costs and free consumers from the volatile price swings in the natural gas and oil markets caused by supply and demand issues. Technological improvements and federal production incentives have made the cost of electricity from some renewable sources more cost-competitive compared to generating power from conventional sources. In fact, technological improvements and market growth are making renewable sources more cost competitive.

Some countries are using renewable energy as one way to encourage economic development and stimulate local economies. In many instances energy needs result in a community going to outside utilities or energy suppliers. By developing renewable energy sources, which often employ native resources and local production, energy money is spent in the local economy, helping to generate local revenue.

A renewable energy teaching resources set has been developed to demonstrate the workings of clean energy technologies on a miniature scale. Using an educational games approach can let children build an entire miniature renewable energy system and configure the system in different ways to visualize the complete system from start to finish. Children can learn about direct renewable power generation using solar photovoltaic technology. Experiments with electrolysis shows how to generate and store hydrogen and discover how hydrogen can be used as a renewable “energy carrier” that can power many applications via fuel cell technology.

The combination of science games provides an excellent opportunity to learn about the exciting prospects of renewable energy, as well basic physics and chemistry principles. Seeing how renewable energy can be harnessed, stored, and re-used is an essential ingredient in children’s understanding that can inspire novel developments of the future. Their inheritance may have been eroded over the last few generations; this is a way to start putting something back for the future.

Alistair Owens  keen2learn.

Over the past 15 years, we have raised the question, “Why do you use educational games?” to our clients and workshop participants. From their feedback we have constructed a list of the ten very best reasons for using learning games. We hope these 10 descriptions will remind and stimulate you to consider learning games as a training alternative; and, then to consider one of our fine, field-tested, fun-to-play, classroom proven products.

1: Games are Fun with a Purpose
Games create a cognitive engagement between the learner and the topic in a flowing, smiling environment. Games celebrate your topic and reward individual and group achievement. Games bring fun and energy into a buoyant learning zone, but with the focus on learning.

2: Games Provide Feedback to the Learner
Learners want and need feedback on their performance. Games give them immediate feedback on the quality of their input — their successes and their errors. With the appropriate corrective feedback, this can become an invaluable learning opportunity.

3: Games Provide Feedback to the Trainer
Games provide a practice field where learners interact with the topic, demonstrating their knowledge and ability to apply the information. By observing this real-time demonstration, the trainer can adjust the subsequent level of lecture, readings and interventions, accordingly.

4: Games are Experiential
Today’s learner needs to do and to try things on her own. Games provide an environment that transforms the passive student into an active part of the learning process where she can connect her own dots and experience her own ideas. Games also remind both player and teacher that energy in the classroom is a good thing.

5: Games Motivate Learners
Games engage players and then motivate them to interact with the topic. This interaction drives players to demonstrate their understanding of the topic in a friendly contest where successes are memorable moments of shared triumph and celebration and where mistakes mean only that the learner is being stretched to his or her own limits.

6: Games Improve Team Work
Games are real-time activities that bring players into teams, demonstrate the rules and roles of working together as a team, and underscore the value of team collaboration. Games give your learners a chance to know their peers as they share the same real-time experiences, allowing for strong networking and bonding.

7: Games Provide a Less Threatening Learning Environment
Because the game format is playful, the inherent challenge of the material, even new or difficult material, is less threatening. During game play seemingly difficult questions and scenarios are “just part of the game.” And, teachers can use the window following classroom responses to build a bridge between the topic and the learner.

8: Games Bring Real-World Relevance
Games allow you to present real-world information in the form of questions, scenarios, role-plays, and so forth. In this way, players learn not only the “what,” but the “why,” of the topic from a real-world perspective. Players also observe their own behaviour and that of others during game play. Post game debriefings give insights into those behaviours in thoughtful examples observed during game play.

9: Games Accelerate Learning
Games allow you to compress your topic and demonstrated learning into shorter periods of time, accelerating the speed of learning. The visual presentation, oral interactions, and active participation of game play appeals to all of the learning styles (visual, auditory and kinesthetic), involves both the rational and experiential mind that helps players remember what they have learned.

10: Games Give You Choices for Your Classroom
Games allow you to add variety and flexibility to your teaching menus. Games allow you to do any or all of the following:

* Vary the level of learner involvement
* Vary the level of skill level and knowledge
* Customize to any size of audience, even one-on-one
* Vary the type and level of activity
* Vary the level of classroom control
* Introduce or review topics, or both
* Vary the mix of theoretical and practical information

Steve Sugar
www.thegamegroup.com

>Steve Sugar (MBA) is the President of The Game Group and the writer and teacher of learning activities and games. Steve is an Adjunct Professor of Management at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) and has served on the faculties of The John Hopkins University, the New York Institute of Technology and the University of Maryland University College (UMUC).

There is an army of five million adults in the UK that can’t read or write properly and of critical concern is this alarming number is growing. Children continue to finish their primary or secondary education unable to read or write.
The new TV documentary highlights the dilemma. Accepting the inevitable slant TV puts on many programmes to add drama, last night’s docudrama featuring a group of nine mature and illiterate students was still shocking.

The reality of this staggering statistic is a body blow to the educational standards in the UK.  We still fail to provide the very basics of education to all our children.  The TV teacher chosen to lead the recovery demonstrated passion and commitment to the role. But worryingly he was at considerable odds with the teaching resources he was advised to use.  If the reading support, including worksheets and procedures developed by the hierarchy were regarded by the teacher as complex, arduous and missing the point what hope is there it will work.

The slightly over emotional teacher, previously a musician, admitted he had never taught anybody to read in his life. Initially he seemed a strange appointment but his direct approach proved the skill of a good teacher can outweigh a multitude of ring binders of arduous theory.  His novel approach using educational games supported his passion in the role that started to break through decades of frustration and neglect. Turning reading support into fun and providing one to one support has started to overcome the many reasons for the student’s illiteracy, epitomising what good teaching is all about. Once the inertia is overcome we can expect rapid progress.

Each of the nine students had been failed by the initial schooling process. They had suffered the law of averages, inevitably casting students operating at the bottom of the class into the inevitable realm of exclusion from the lesson.  The point emphasized by the illiterate plumber set word search puzzles at school and sent home at midday.

Teachers facing the constant pressure of attaining academic targets are bound to focus on the average and brighter student to boost the score. In place of spending vast sums of money on complex procedures maybe we need to listen more closely to the operational experience of teachers. Investing in a policy where no student should leave primary school whilst failing in literacy or numeracy would deal with the problem at source. This perhaps brutal approach should receive vital direct funding where it will help give all children the best chance to thrive academically in secondary school.  The “Every Child a Reader” literacy scheme introduced by the government has to be a prerequisite in any target judgement.

The sterling work completed by the reading support organisations such as the “Volunteer Reading Help” ( primary schools ) and “Reading Matters”(secondary schools)  provide 1:1 support to struggling readers in school. Both are registered charities and reliant on volunteers. Should government funding be extended to develop the services offered by these groups? A greater number of trained volunteers to help teachers in more schools and perhaps adult classes can only help – provided they do not loose their independence.

The TV program’s refreshing angle showed the element of fun through reading games overcame many of the issues faced by the students, and that illiteracy is not down to a single cause. The musical introduction to reading skills introduced enjoyment to the process that seemed adequately to displace the complex procedures. But learning to read through English games involves teaching phonics – the sound of words – ironically where the “ph” of phonics is of course pronounced as “f” which is where we came in!

The parent homework help dilemma; do you physically help or just make sure they do it? What sort of help is best for the children and the school? Why the worst option is to do nothing and how fun homework help through educational games can come the rescue.

To most children homework is a bore or chore and wastes valuable recreation time. To most parents homework help induces a degree of anxiety; can they, should they help and if so how? To teachers homework is a vital element of lesson practice that results in 75% retention in learning. Compared to the activity in class, where learning retention can hover around 50%, ( National Training Laboratory) homework has a critical role that is ironically predominately beyond a teachers control. Can it be true that one of the most significant elements of the education armoury lies largely outside of the school gates? This is comparable to a car with the turbocharger not working. The performance is limited, the car struggles to reach 70 miles per hour and the fuel consumption is much higher than it need to be.

Homework, perhaps better described as – school work at home, is the single biggest opportunity for parents to turbo charge their children’s education. Modern educational games present a breakthrough to enable parents support to be enlisted as an additional teaching resource. Research has shown that what parents do at home to support learning can account for 80% of a child’s academic success ( PTA magazine).

So how can parents and grandparents get more involved in effective homework help?

The prevailing view of homework is through text and exercise book tasks. Leaving many parents isolated and acting in an overseer role, many children gain support from their peers. Add, subtract, multiply, write a story, and read a chapter are simple tasks set by the teacher to induce the element of practice. Homework has to be set, collected and marked which amounts to a sizeable burden on a teachers’ time. It also gains more teaching time beyond the statutory minimum of 196 days a year. Expressed differently 53% of the year spent in school leaving 47% at home.

The best way to include parents is to make time spent with their children fun. Access to the maths games, English grammar and fun science projects used in school can make a real difference when also used at home. Greater interaction is possible than with conventional homework allowing parents to participate in “homework help” that avoid any conflict with manipulating homework. More importantly it avoids the parent having to be an expert in the subject area.

Educational games become “learning in disguise.” The subject areas, developed in games format introduce key elements of the subject as an interactive computer game, bingo, card or board game etc. The learning process is hidden in the fun; 30 minutes playing these games allows a child to practice maths, English, biology or history with the parent in the role of learning mentor. Witnessing a child’s performance dynamically rather than waiting for end of term or year school reports allows more timely adjustments. Ongoing guidance provided by the teacher avoids wasting precious time.

A survey of teachers in 2007 and a government report from the DCSF reveals unanimous support towards greater engagement of parents seen as crucial in the learning programme. With modern educational games toys and puzzles now available parents have the chance to rekindle their effective involvement and make a real difference to their child’s academic achievement.

A growing concern voiced by many teachers is the level of disruption occurring in the average class. Ranging from the severe to a simple case of horseplay at the start of the lesson it has a dramatic effect in draining the teaching resources as well as impacting on the development of children in the class All is not lost as parents can affect a striking recovery plan that helps their child and the teacher.

Edward Lazear of the Hoover Institution found that, “If, on average, each student disrupts the class just 1 percent of the time, the time available for learning drops to 74 percent for a class size of 30.” Even the best teachers can only do so much, and many have cited disruption as the most stressful element of teaching. It is no wonder that the “teach to test” syndrome is one consequence of a school’s need  to grasp some vestige of achievement by streamlining the teaching content to hit targets  Regrettably this  results in a veneer of knowledge, presenting  a smart image on the surface but with little depth. Now it is possible for parents to use educational games at home to give greater practical support in the teaching activities of their children.
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Paddington bear popped home yesterday, not to Peru but keen2learn. Bet you thought he was born in Peru and resides in Paddington. Well he does, but the bedrooms at Home Farm in Burghwallis, now the base for keen to learn, echo to bedtime stories read many years ago by Shirley and Eddie Clarkson. The kitchen table witnessed Shirley make the very first Paddington bear as a Christmas present for her children, Joanna and Jeremy, and brought the stories to life. Friends upon meeting the character in the flesh wanted one, and the rest is history.

Shirley has just launched her book “Bearely Believable” coinciding with the 50^th anniversary of the Paddington stories by Michael bond. It’s the amusing story of the fun they had living in Home Farm and the trials and tribulations surrounding the development of Paddington bear. The kitchen table was quickly outgrown, and production moved to the spare bedroom, then across the yard to a converted cowshed and finally to a local factory. Shirley revisited Home Farm recently – with the original Paddington – after a 21 year absence to record these events for the BBC.

Bedtime stories turned Paddington into a firm favourite in the Clarkson family. The imagination that bedtime stories trigger in a child’s mind develops their learning process. Parents reading stories and playing other educational games with their children throughout the schooling process helps stimulate learning. And the interaction between child and parent becomes mutually rewarding with obvious benefits back at school.

Our modern lifestyle leads to many parents being time poor. Coupled with a frequent reluctance to read aloud the essential bedtime story has taken a back seat with 54% of Dad’s. But modern technology has come to the aid of the busy parent. Subscriptions to on-line stories narrated by actors and including animation and highlighted script turn a PC or laptop into a world of imagination. An educational game, the service enhances reading and literacy skills in children, is easy for tired Dads to join in and learn how to read a story aloud.

In a world of TV, Internet, Wii, Nintendo and computers it is all too easy to assume children can amuse themselves. Encouraging developments in the Electronic Media to include educational games is a positive move. However, parents and grandparents still have a vital role to play. Help, encouragement, mutual involvement and interactive feedback can all inspire a child to learn more. They love to share their experience and show how they are doing.

Electronic Media has the advantage that it never tires of repetition, something the tired parent can be grateful of when the same story or game is played yet again! Predicting what happens next is an essential part of the learning curve, children love to be able to foretell and repetitive feedback is part of this process.

So how is Paddington doing after all these years? The stories are still popular and the Paddington bear figures are still in shops. Production has moved from the bedroom at Home Farm to China. Marmalade sandwiches are probably deep fried. If you want the full story read Shirley’s great book. And did those bedtime stories read by Shirley and Eddie Clarkson help the children? One of them is Jeremy Clarkson; author, journalist and broadcaster – with an innate ability to tell a great story.

Bio:

Home Farm is once again involved in story telling to children. On the kitchen table two years ago an award winning website www.keen2learn.co.uk was developed to promote educational games, toys and puzzles to schools, parents and grandparents. The central theme is fun because this is what turns learning into a game – “ learning in disguise”. To see an example of reading support games visit http://www.keen2learn.co.uk/c/355/Reading_Games.php and you can see an online reading game at http://www.keen2learn.co.uk/product/MightyBook.php

Fractions, Decimals and Percentages Are Just Coded Maths Games

I always found math to be a difficult subject to learn at school.  I put most of my failing down to the fact I sat too close to an old fashioned pot-bellied stove.  This provided a great source of warmth but also destroyed my concentration. At least I learnt to spell soporific in a written defence during a subsequent detention, but the absence of maths sense slowed the learning curve for some years. Maths was always a struggle; the pot bellied stove inflicted collateral damage but I believe the real culprit was the boring way maths was taught.

Mathematics can be described as a series of fantastic codes. Once they are broken the maths games that can be played are endless and enjoyable. The modern technique of using educational games as the base makes life far more interesting and pays dividends in the attention paid by the average child. It also allows parents to repeat say a maths game at home

Like many things in life once a code is understood the task becomes far easier. This is the case when we come across a new computer program. Initially it is hard work and intuition fights with or against the operating manual. Once mastered a host of shortcuts and shortcomings are revealed and in no time our learning curve overtakes the computer and we start to identify areas where the program could be improved.

A recent example of breaking a mathematics code appeared in the form of the crop circle in the south of England.  The intricate pattern that was pressed into a wheat field at first sight appeared as just another artistic pattern in a crop circle.  In reality it was a complex diagram that an astrophysicist decoded to reveal its meaning as a fantastic way to represent the value of pi to the first 10 significant places. Guaranteed 99% of us who looked at the crop circle failed to understand that it was a mathematics code rather than a decorative pattern.  Obviously the perpetrator knew what he was doing and set this elaborate game to challenge mathematicians.  Once the code was broken the answer was obvious.

Leonardo Da Vinci was artist and a great mathematician who used codes to set out his theories. Used by subsequent generations of scholars even today they provide educational games that require ingenuity to crack the code.  Some areas of maths have a number of different ways of expressing the same information. Fractions and percentages express similar information in slightly different form. This feature allows us to mask the details by expressing facts in a form of code.

Recently Ed balls, the schools Secretary in the UK, announced that two fifths of all secondary schools are underperforming.  He could of course have said that 40 per cent of all schools are failing which conjures up a much bigger image.  Expressing the number of schools as a fraction is code to mask the actual hard fact. He could have just also revealed the actual number, but to say that 638 schools are failing would come as quite a shock to parents of the children involved. More startling perhaps would be an announcement that there are around 1,215,000 children at these 638 schools many of whom are potentially failing at maths. That’s a much bigger number than we might associate with two fifths! Codes are designed to initially hide or abbreviate the facts. Mr Balls could be said to be masking the facts, but he has only been in the job for a few months. Let’s hope he can quickly crack the code to improve the educational performance of future generations of children in the UK.

The English language being an amalgam of many other languages is possibly the most adaptive in the world. With complex and changing content the tricks you can play with English has made it one of the best games in education. But although  the constantly changing  “rules” refreshes the fun it can trip the unwary and make examination success hazardous.

 Many parents, keen to provide active support in their child’s schooling are concerned this may be problematic; citing changes in teaching techniques that may leave them exposed or detract from their child’s progress. Clearly teaching techniques must evolve else we will fail to benefit from progress, but what if the subject matter, English,  is evolving  at such a rate that can see significant changes occurring during the schooling journey of a child.

English, as any language is the basic structure behind communication. Yet the world of communication is changing fast. The internet has seen exponential growth in speed, usage and range of access to information on a global basis. An historic search for information probably involved a dictionary, thesaurus or encyclopaedia to check spelling, meaning, and synonym or to learn facts. Inevitably during the searching process other words, meanings, interpretations and facts would be revealed across the page which broadened our knowledge base. But has the internet changed the process? Spelling is less critical. even in a search using Google – the system  itself suggests “did you mean” corrections to spelling. The resultant search, being computer driven,  can be extraordinary rapid and  far more targeted, but are we missing the opportunity to absorb knowledge from a ramble through additional facts.  

The evolution of the English language has developed at a greater pace over the past ten years. The spread of English, fuelled by the internet, cinema, DVD and TV has established a global first language in communications. The arbitrators in education need to be equally dynamic. Spelling games and exams must be a nightmare for teachers and examiners as the content and rules change.  Any learning resource must first decide whether it is a programme or program. There is growing interest in a society formed to remove redundant letters in words. From their viewpoint the correct spelling of colour is color and ghost doesn’t’ t really need the “h” and could just as well be gost. This  could lead to some interesting debates with the purists who claim the origin of the word should identify how the word is spelt.

Handwriting has been largely replaced by a keyboard input inextricably linked to predictive text or spellcheck  where the initial comprehension of correct spelling has less impact. The ravages of abbreviation have taken their toll over the years but the English language has largely survived intact from several previous onslaughts. Years ago, communications relying on semaphore, Morse code and teletext, evolved abbreviations and codes to shorten the time to communicate without loosing the context. That’s a 10 – 4, O.K. or Roger of course. The current threat from texting abbreviations through the global usage  of a cell phones will an interesting test case on the Queen’s English.

The key to education is the ability to read. We all have different speeds of reading and learning and all too often some of us can get left behind through in the whirlwind of modern life. Busy classrooms, busy Mums and Dads can result in the struggling reader slipping behind and maybe giving up. One of the recent success stories are the reading volunteers going into schools to give one to one support to a child. Startling results have been achieved. Within 6 weeks the struggling reader can overtake the rest of the class! If all children could receive this level of support we could expect substantially improved standards. But children don’t get 1:1 support in school, it’s impractical. In an average class of 30 there just isn’t the time despite the very best efforts of the teacher.

Some support at home is essential but how do we achieve this in the clamour of an equally busy home life. Bedtime stories have lapsed over the years yet these are the lifeblood of the help to be given at home. The part Dad’s play in this role has also slipped badly over the years due in the main to longer hours worked and perhaps the grim commute. The good news is there is some great new help for the busy school and parents

Technology has spurred the development of online reading games. Using a pc, whiteboard and especially a laptop computer, children can now watch animated stories where the script is highlighted as the narrator reads the story. Children love to repeat a favourite story – now just a click of the mouse away. And by turning reading into educational games there’s some great fun in the process.

To see an example of MightyBook reading support educational games take a look here

Alistair Owens operates www.keen2learn.co.uk offering educational games toys and puzzles.