I used Minecraft to teach my kids reading and writing | Hacker News Reader

I used Minecraft to teach my kids reading and writing

phoinixdurden.medium.com

12 pointsfraoulitsa11 comments

My 10yo daughter has been playing Roblox for a couple of years. I was really surprised about some of the worlds she plays. To progress through the stages, players have to solve a series of puzzles. These puzzles can be anything you can think of, and I know because she would often call me for help with them.

She hates school, and it's always a fight to get her to do homework, but she can sit for hours on these puzzle games and talk to people in different languages (basically), while typing like a demon.

She still hates school, but yesterday we got a report from the teacher saying she's excelling in tests. This wasn't the case a year ago.

My autistic 11 year old has been playing roblox and Minecraft for the better part of 6 years now. He used to not talk other than single words. He can now spell, read, form sentences. This is all in addition to his IEP and education of course, but I like to think it helps. I never help him spell words to find games, I always make him sound it out and learn.

Pro tip: if you're trying to expose your kids to foreign languages, change the language of games to that language (in the same vain as "watch cartoons in that language)

English learned through subtitles here... Star Trek TNG at night.

Did you listen to English audio with subtitles in your native language, or dubbed audio with English subtitles?

English audio, english subtitles.

English and C learned here through ioquake3 forks. :)

Extra tip: if you want to expose yourself to foreign languages, change the language of games you play.

Works best when playing a new game, where you haven't memorized the vocabulary and the UI yet.

Games which are not story based, but full of text (sims, managers) are good for repetition learning.

With YouTube's recommendation engine our 3-year old regularly watches cartoons in Arabic, Russian, Spanish and English. And he's using words he's heard in the right context too.

(We're Swedish).

My eldest became a proficient reader because she was playing Minecraft. Don’t remember exact age when this happened, maybe 6 or 7 (she’s 10 now). Before Minecraft, she would go a word at a time and not really comprehend but once she started playing her reading became fluent within weeks. Had an immediate impact on her performance at school too.

Now she’s into Roblox and I sometimes see her in Roblox studio hacking some Lua (or their version of Lua).

Here is a Friend link for OP Medium blog: https://phoinixdurden.medium.com/i-used-minecraft-to-teach-m...

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