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.