Enhancing decoding efficiency in poor readers via a word identification game

The effects of a word identification game aimed at enhancing decoding efficiency in poor readers were tested. Following a pretest-posttest-retention design with a waiting control group, 62 poor-reading Dutch second graders received a five-hour tablet intervention across a period of five weeks. During the intervention, participants practiced reading words and pseudowords while doing semantic categorization and lexical decision exercises in a gaming context. Prior to, directly after, and five weeks following the intervention, word-decoding efficiency was assessed using a standardized read-aloud test consisting of six lists of untrained words and pseudowords with three levels of difficulty: consonant-vowel-consonant items, consonant cluster items, and disyllabic items. Significant increases as a result of the brief gaming intervention were found for decoding efficiency on all six word lists. The game, which included repetition, immediate corrective feedback, and a semantics task, elicited transfer and retention effects