Gaming and College Reading

This chapter discusses what does gaming have to do with college reading? It explores three ways to approach that question: using games to teach college reading; “Reading” games as texts; and using “game-based teaching” to teach college reading. There are some simple tests to tell if a game that proposes to teach reading actually teaches or just tests reading skills and to tell if this teaching is done via game or edutainment. Although many scholars do not include video games in research on reading, viewing video games as texts is not much of a stretch. Video games have recognized genres (first-person shooter, adventure games, casual games, etc.). Video games have the basic elements of fictional texts: characters, setting, plot, mood, etc. Although educational games can be used to teach reading, as demonstrated earlier, most digital reading programs, while they still teach, do not qualify as games although they may be disguised as them.