It seems like almost any game that comes out nowadays, whether console or PC based, has a walkthough guide published for it. It's a matter of debate about whether using such a guide is cheating or not. Certainly for some of the larger games, the guides are the only way to be sure you complete 100%. Whether it's cheating or not is a debate for another day. From the Ferret's perspective, these books serve another purpose: they encourage kids to read.
That's right, these books are great sources to get kids to read. I say this from my own experience with my kids, the 8 and 7 year-old gamers that are already hard core in their devotion, setting ambushes for the older masters who dare enter the lair. Both have been tested repeatedly in standardized tests on reading and reading comprehension and both scores well above their ages. And I'm here to tell you that the gaming walkthroughs are the reason for it. But before exploring that, let me digress back to a time when the Ferret was a wee little one himself. I'm talking about the time when us OGs (Old Gamers) were still cutting our teeth.
Back in that day, we didn't have gaming walkthroughs. But we had comic books. We had lots and lots of comic books. And I don't just mean the popular ones like X-Men and Spiderman and Superman. I mean comic books like The Warlord, Savage Sword of Conan, and The New Mutants. This was when BetaMax versus VHS was still being fought and a long time before cable and satellite TV were widespread and available to everyone. We were pulled in by the graphical appeal of the DC and Marvel productions and we naturally wanted to understand what the characters were saying. So we learned to be better readers.
Some of us also delved into Dungeons and Dragons. I remember DMing my first D&D game at the ripe old age of 6. I gathered together my cousin and a friend and we started exploring dungeons together. That Christmas my parents saw fit to bestow upon me my very own Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manual, and Player's Handbook, along with my own set of dice so I'd no longer have to borrow my father's gear. I poured over those tomes. In them I encountered many a strange word which I had to look up. And my vocabulary grew greatly as a result. Erik Mona, editor of Dragon magazine, pointed this out in a recent editorial, so I know I wasn't alone in this experience.
And that brings me back to the current day. Comics are a shell of what they once were and D&D books are expensive. But the gaming walkthroughs, they aren't too pricey, especially with a lot of game stores offering a discount on them if you purchase them with the game. They are the perfect way to get the smaller gamers reading better. You got a small fry of your own (whether as a father or brother/sister) who wants to copy everything you do? Sit that new gamer in front of the TV and hand that kid a copy of a gaming walkthrough.
At first, the child may need your help to read sections. Yes, this means you'll have to put some time in. Help them out at first. Sit with them and run your finger under the words as you read them out loud. If the words are hard, explain 'em. That builds the child's word recognition skills and the child's vocabulary. This is step one. And you thought nothing this good would ever come of your gaming addiction. But we're not done yet. This isn't a 12 step approach, but it is a 3 step one.
Step 2, after you have done the reading to the kid a little bit, then start having the kid try to read with you. Help and coach. If there's a hard word, help the kid sound the word out. Help determine the meaning of new words by reading the context. You'll be surprised at what a little encouragement will do. Your new gamer will be trying to impress you. Show yourself impressed. Don't fake it. Think about the difficulty they are overcoming, kind of like finally beating Sephiroth on Final Fantasy VII or whooping Peyton Manning and the Colts with the 49ers 49-0 on All-Madden mode with all helps off. Reading poses that kind of challenge for them.
The final step, step 3, when that small fry bring the gaming walkthrough to read through with you, take a step back. Tell the kid, "I want to see you read it and then do it on screen. If you get stuck with a word, I'll help you out. But you gotta do this on your own." And then encourage the gamer to do it. When they read the walkthough section and they do it on-screen, tell that kid what a great job he or she has just done. See, this is reading comprehension. And when your new gamer demonstrates this, he or she is well on the way to a lifetime of decent reading skills.
That's right, fellow gamers, it's really as simple as I've described. Yes, it'll require your time. Yes, it means sometimes putting up with a kid trying to read and struggle over difficult words. But this is one small way of improving the next generation in a hobby/addiction you enjoy so much. Once you do it, though, you'll see the reward of watching a kid learn to read is worth every single second and every single cent you put in. It'll beat the experience of conquering any game because you just helped a young one succeed at the best game of all: life.
