Benefits of Gamified Reading for the Students of Lam Tin Methodist School in Reading Battle

Benefits of Gamified Reading for the Students of Lam Tin Methodist School in Reading Battle

Lam Tin Methodist Primary School Library joined the research project of the University of Hong Kong, “Strengthening students’ reading comprehension ability (both Chinese and English) through developing children’s literature e-quiz bank on cloud” since the school year 2013-2014. Taking advantage of the availability of cloud services, Information and Communication Technology as well as comprehensive computer facilities of schools, the interactive e-quiz platform successfully run in different primary schools. Over 5,000 students from over 50 schools/libraries from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China and United States have used this award-bearing gamification equiz platform. To join Reading Battle, we have to perfect the students’ digital learning environment both in school and at home. After introducing Reading Battle at school in 2013, Chrome browsers were installed across all school devices as suggested by the Chief Investigator, Dr. Sam Chu, and his Research Team. Parent Guidelines in both printed and online formats of installing Google Chrome were provided by the teacher-librarian to enable students’ accessibility of Reading Battle via the Chrome browser at home. Starting at this point, both teachers and students got used to the Web 2.0 tools in students’ school learning and daily lives. Teachers could engage students in different learning activities with a repertoire of digital tools such as Google Classroom, Chromebook apps, and Google Earth. Students were able to use different Google and online tools to collaborate with their peers. The active users of Reading Battle showed drastic improvements not only in reading ability but also in writing ability. It led to the steady progression in other subject learning. The most impressive findings among all were the positive impact of Reading Battle on the literacy achievement of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Not only their reading interest, but also their social skills, and self-images were improved with the child-friendly system.