Playing Traditional Style Games Can Increase Children’s Life Chances!

As I write this I cannot know if this statement surprises any reader, yet the absence of traditional style games (i.e. those played around a table e.g. board and card games) in any meaningful sense from the school scene suggests to me a widespread lack of belief in it.

Yet a little reported study from the US showed that over an eight week program children aged 7 to 10 had their ‘reasoning’ scores raised by 32% a gain equivalent to “an entire year of school” whilst a separate study saw a 27% increase in processing speed. Perhaps most interestingly the study identified that the neediest children benefited the most with the greatest cognitive improvements being recorded by those children who started farthest down the rankings.

I believe these results provide compelling evidence in support of the need for formalised use of games within schools. The nature of modern education is to teach children based on the need to pass exams and children are tested regularly to ensure they are achieving the necessary progress. Traditional style games offer an engaging, fun and yet challenging way to test and stretch children’s mental and social abilities and in so doing embed their formalised learning and help develop the life skills they will need once they leave the protective environment of schools.

Interestingly over 30 countries around the world already have board games as part of the curriculum and in the US within one state they have a board game library that schools can draw on.

The full report can be read here