Nov 15, 2022 2022-11-15
Mobile Learning
Gaming App to Improve Literacy
The Barbara Bush Foundation has worked with the Dollar General Foundation and Southern Methodist University’s game lab for the last few years to develop an app to transform literacy skills with engaging, puzzle-solving gameplay. Called Enigma: The Lost Words of Atlantis, the Android app was created to develop adult literacy, but it can also be used by younger struggling readers.
As they play the game, students are adventurers who travel around the world experiencing new cultures and history. In each location they visit, they must uncover the secrets of Atlantis through artifacts and relics that they use to decode the cryptic language of Atlantean into English.
Players harness the power of their Codex, an ancient Atlantean device, to decode the symbols they find in the ancient relics and convert them into English. The interactive story is both engaging and grounded in the science of learning. Students learn to recognize letters, build words, and read and write sentences by deciphering the ancient language. A video shows an example of gameplay, breaking down a word into its onset and rime, a technique often found in literacy curricula.
Whether the player is a native English speaker looking to boost his or her literacy skills or a Spanish speaker learning to read English, the app provides support with instructions delivered in the player’s native language.
Cultural Awareness ELL/ESL Gamification/Game-Based Learning Reading/English/Language Arts
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