Educational Trends: Learning Games for Kids

Today I noticed a very interesting news announcement about a company called LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc. who just released two new educational game titles based on Lucasfilm's upcoming Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

These are learning games, and apparently they are so successful that the company also plans to develop two additional Star Wars learning games for 2009. Each game connects to what is called the LeapFrog(R) LearningPath, which is a free online tool that shows parents what their child is learning.

LeapFrog developed these educational games, based on the very popular Lucasfilm storylines and characters, for its two new gaming platforms:

1) The Leapster2 Learning Game System, for kids from four to eight,
2) TheDidj Custom Gaming System, for children from six to ten years old.

Both games are available at http://www.leapfrog.com/gaming and at major retailers. The suggested retail price for the Leapster2 game is $24.99, and for the Didj title, $29.99.

In a recent survey of more than 1,000 parents by ConsumerQuest for LeapFrog, 66 percent of the parents of three-to 11-year-old children felt playing with educational video games gives their child an educational advantage.

I know from my experience with my educational charity work, which can be seen at http://www.roccobasile.org/, that parents are concerned about how their kids learn. At Children of the City, for example, there is one program known as Create Success, that is fast becoming a model sought after by other organizations. A high priority is placed on student’s academic success with intense tutoring and daily personal homework help. This connection with the student allows us the open door to provide them with counseling, advocacy within the social systems (school and court), age-appropriate group and individual mentoring, family mediation, creative and performing arts, as well as sports.
Children of the City goals are:
To close the academic skills gap;
To displace the poverty mentality;
To provide the support and resources needed to help each child and youth complete their education and enter the workplace;

Create Success evaluates student performance using NYC Department of Education assessment tools. Our evaluation measures showed that over the past three years:
95 percent of the students tested improved several DRA levels;
20 percent increased an entire grade level;
All students expressed they felt more comfortable reading, more confident in their math skills, and had a positive outlook about their educational success.