Questioning the educational value of handheld gamers

A common marketing claim of handheld gamers made for young children is that they are educational. But can spending hours a day tapping away at a toy computer really benefit your child?

Well, I guess the answer is yes and no all at the same time.

No matter what the toy claims, nothing will beat good quality solid interaction with an adult (or even older child) willing to help a child. Just through conversation, games and role-play children learn so much. Only an adult can build a child’s confidence through praise will learning to read or do math.

But that doesn’t render the handheld gamers like the LeapPad Explorer educational tablet or VTech InnoTab learning tablet completely useless.

You can’t be there to interact with your child every minute they are home. Sure it would be fun, but the kids would soon complain when there was no dinner to be eaten, or clean clothes to wear. During those times when you are busy and need your child to occupy themselves, educational gamers can really be a big help.

When the alternative is an hour slumped on the couch watching cartoons on TV, an hour on a learning games system doesn’t look so bad. The modern systems are designed to develop a range of skills. Games teach logic, reasoning, problem solving and life skills. And many of the consoles have e-readers built-in, so your child can read to themselves with help from the computer when they are unfamiliar with a word.

So although your child’s educational achievements are unlikely to be dependent on whether they have had a gamer or not, they are a useful alternative to less child-friendly video games, or noisy cartoons.