Vocalnayno: Designing a Game-Based Intervention to Support Reading Development in Primary Schools

TL;DR

This paper presents Vocalnayno, a game-based intervention designed to enhance primary school children's reading skills by integrating engaging gameplay with measurable reading performance metrics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel game prototype that integrates into teaching practices to support reading development and provides initial design and implementation details.

Findings

Prototype demonstrates potential for engaging children in reading activities.

The game records real-time reading performance metrics.

Initial design shows feasibility for classroom integration.

Abstract

Encouraging children to read frequently and helping them to develop their reading skills as effectively as possible can be a challenge for some primary schools. This research questions whether the use of a game-based intervention can integrate into the existing teaching culture to aid volunteer teaching assistants in achieving a more significant impact on pupil reading development. A prototype based on the initial process of requirements gathering is presented using Multimedia Fusion Developer 2. The design incorporates a game-like exercise where a foam volcano character releases bubbles containing letters and words. Pupils must read these aloud in order to burst them open, which is recorded as a metric of reading ability.