Parenting Solutions - Promoting Reading Over Video Games
School age children are spending over ninety minutes a day playing video games while at that the same time spending less than 30 minutes a day reading, according to multiple studies concerned about the impact of increased digital time on academic success.
One study by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation of children birth to six years old found that parents felt educational TV and video games were "very important to their child's educational development."
However, while these young children were spending an average of two hours a day looking at a screen, they spent about 30 minutes reading or having someone read to them.
“These findings definitely raise a red flag about the impact of TV on children’ s reading,” said Vicky Rideout of the Kaiser Family Foundation. “Clearly this needs to be a top priority for future research.”
Compare the findings of the Kaiser Family Foundation with the National Institute for Literacy paper "Literacy Begins at Home: Teach Them To Read."
"The years from birth through age 5 are a critical time for children’s development and learning...Research confirms that patterns of learning in preschool are closely linked to later achievement: children who develop more skills in the preschool years perform better in the primary grades," according to their September 2007 report.
The impact of increasing amounts of time spent on digital games (PS2, DS Nintendo, X-Box, Wii) and online computer games over other activities, including reading, is the focus of Hope A. Cummings, MA and Elizabeth A. Vandewater, PhD's study published in Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine in July 2007.
"Although we focused on the relationship between time spent in video game play and other activities among adolescents, an important next step for future research will be to assess the ways in which video game play is related to academic and social outcomes among American youth,"
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