1850!!
1850 words! Do you know how much that is?!?
My son is 8 years old and in primary school. This year he has to do a paper of 1850 words.
And… He has to do that at home.
So we can see exactly how he tackles it:
- a preparatory hour of sighing, drama, saying he can’t do it anyway, more sighing
- an hour of watching YouTube videos that are somewhat related to the topic but by the end of the hour probably not at all
- a scant half-hour of typing, with a report after every five minutes: only 1841 words left! Only 1839 words left!
We try not to interfere, but of course we can’t hold back either. So every now and then my husband and I throw up a question:
> Do you already know how many inhabitants England has?
>> No.
> Do you know yet why they built Stonehenge in the first place?
>> No.
> Do you know who is now the queen / king of…………
>> Noohooooooo!
When I secretly check what he wrote: Shakespeare is considered the greatest writer England has ever produced.
And I compare that to Wikipedia: Shakespeare is considered the greatest writer England has ever produced.
In short, I don’t know for whom this writing assignment is a greater torture….. As parents, after such a writing session, we still wonder how that will be done later in secondary school. There he will be given many more papers. They have to be finished much faster. And they should probably be more in-depth. Will that boy be all right?
But then I come home with a new game
Son wants to play it and we set it up in advance. While I’m cooking, I ask him to go through the rules of the game and watch an instructional video in advance.
After dinner, the three of us sit around the game and son smoothly guides us through the different rounds. Sometimes we doubt whether his explanation is correct (are you sure?) and check the rules of the game. His story is correct (‘I told you so!’).
Is this the same boy who is so unsure about his paper? He has read the rules, watched/listened to an instructional video in 20 minutes and summarises it in his own words, keeps a logical order, pays attention to details. And is also confident about his explanation.
I suddenly think again of a children’s coach I spoke to at an Education Fair. She uses games in her coaching in a special way. Namely, she not only plays a game, but also spends time on preparation and social interaction.
Together with the child, she first goes through the rules of the game and has the child make a mind map of them. Then the child explains the rules of the game to her and she pays attention not only to logic and language but also to non-verbal communication. When a child is confident she can explain the game, she may ask a friend to come and play it.
For me, a confirmation that
reading game rules and explaining them to others is an exercise in reading comprehension. Reading, listening, logical reasoning, summarising, tuning in to your audience…. everything is covered.
All skills that you address with a game.
A load off my mind.
If son can explain a complex game so clearly, I’m sure that piece of work will be fine too.
….. We are going to count words in the meantime!
Update
We are now five years on. In the news is the deteriorating reading skills of 15-year-olds….
Recently, we were playing Machiavelli with seven people and had a fiery discussion about one of the cards. Such a discussion then really revolves around details from the text: may you use the card’s power immediately or only after you put it down. And when such a question then boils down to winning or losing a game, suddenly there turns out to be nothing wrong with the reading skills of those 15-year-olds.
Above: art of the rulebook Dice Hospital.
Left: article on Dutch news at December 5th 2023. Read the complete article here.
General information on Dice Hospital
The game shown in the pictures accompanying this article is Dice Hospital, a game where the dice are your patients. The dice arrive at your hospital with a value between 2 and 5. You want to help them get to a 6, because then you can discharge them. But you have a lot of dice to look after, so sometimes one slips through your fingers and you can’t help it for a round. You then have to turn such a die to 1 value lower.
number of players: 1 – 4
time: 45 – 90 minutes
from: 10+ it says on the box, but son in grade 6 (so he was 8 then) could explain and play it.
price: around € 61 (Dutch price – update fall 2024)
This post was updated in November 2023 and in November 2024. Meanwhile, there are also expansions to Dice Hospital. For example, there’s an expansion around the maternity ward, but there’s also a street map you have to get your ambulance through. Ask at your game shop about these expansions.
Pictures of rulebooks of other games are from:
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