Video games can be used as learning tools to develop reading comprehension and other skills. They incorporate decision trees and causal networks that represent formal spaces of possibility and the basis of causal analysis in discourse processing. Walkthroughs that explain how to play games can be examples of narrative composition. When readers have strong comprehension skills, they can use higher-level processes to support lower-level skills like decoding. Games can represent design elements found in research and curriculum and motivate sustained engagement through play.

1. Video Games Learning Tools Pandora’s Xbox Brock Dubbels The Center for Cognitive Sciences, The University of Minnesota

5. Towards top sight

6. Building comprehension process Basic reading skills Decoding Reading Comprehension Comprehension Skills Age/ time Figure 1. Kintsch & Kintsch in Paris & Stahl (2006) Grade 4 Reading to Learn Learning to Read

7. Non-traditional Narrative for Assessment

13. Video Walkthrough

16. Characteristics of readers +1 Level of fluenc Y ability to comprehend in dialogic method /create a model High comp High fluency Low comp High fluency Low comp Low fluency High comp Low fluency

17. The Event Indexing Model Zwann, Langston, & Graesser, 1995; Zwann & Radavansky, 1998

22. Invoking play

23. Ethos of Activity

24. Will Games and Play Destroy Us

25. Maybe

28. And rather than fight it, we need to use it to accelerate learning and sustain engagement.

32. What is really important is how we use them. Lets not forget about play and engagement.

33. Better Living Production

35. HumanFIRST Lab ng Modeling

36. Virtual Clinic Production

38. Clapping Academy Design

43. Barbell Factory Production

48. Where are we now? We have taken away play in school

49. Built like a game Graphic by Dan Cook

50. How about Chutes and ladders? Describe the game play mechanics

51. What are the elements of this game? What makes the play emergent? Is it non-linear? Games as a metaphor for instructional design

54. Brock Dubbels