Pokemon Phonics

[goldenecho]

OK, this study on learning phonics/phonemic awareness through Pokemon is WONDERFUL. I mean, in one way it's not that significant since it's small (3 participants), and one of the participants was intentionally fudging the results because he thought it would mean he would get to play the game more times with the researcher. But it had positive results in the other two AND it sounds like a fun method that could be easily done by a parent at home to insert phonics practice into play (I think the child would need to understand that this would be part of it though.). I could see implementing a "Pokemon for Phonics Friday" or something, where you did this in stead of a regular lesson.

 

The most useful part I think is their description of what they did (page 11-13): The Procedure and Decoding Strategies sections...especially the Decoding Strategies section.

https://scholarworks.utep.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4788&context=open_etd

If any of you have used Pokemon as a teaching tool, I'd love to hear what you did.  I've also used it for math (subtraction...every time a player loses points ). 

 

[Dmmetler]

I just did a "Gotta Catch 'em all" music camp, where the kids earned Pokemon cards via trying out instruments, created Pokemon cards for instruments (figuring out how to classify them and sort them), and made their own instruments, as they explored a new region, under the guidance of "Professor Rosewood". 

 

In relation to this study, I do a lot with syllables and rhtyhm of words, and matching to notation, and Pokemon names work very, very well for this. 

I have a set of Pokemon music centers and Pokemon music classroom decor I found on Teachers Pay Teachers,too. 

 

I've used it as a semester-long incentive, where the kids work with different subskills areas to create their "team". 

 

We also did Pokemon IRL when I was doing a science club, where the kids created Pokedex entries for real world animals. L uses creating a card for an animal as an activity in Herpetology, too. 

 

There are TONS of teacher made activities, some free, on Teachers Pay Teachers for almost any subject area you could want. 

Edited July 10, 2023 by Dmmetler

[wendyroo]

5 hours ago, goldenecho said:

The most useful part I think is their description of what they did (page 11-13): The Procedure and Decoding Strategies sections...especially the Decoding Strategies section.

 

I don't know. Their "procedure" seems a little hand-wavy. How to paint a masterpiece: 1) Gather quality materials. 2) Give yourself time to work. 3) Skillfully combine those materials in a way that is eminently pleasing to the human spirit. That's all there is to it!

The researchers found a high value activity through which to introduce material that was challenging to some children. And I think it is valuable to share that idea with others, but realistically, there is nothing magic about Pokémon, and the important part is that teachers are open to finding a theme that resonates with their students.

Then the researchers carefully scaffolded skills by selecting exactly which names/attacks/text they wanted each child to read. And then, when the child struggled, the researchers used their skill, experience and intuition to determine which elements of the words they wanted to focus on and which decoding strategies would be most useful at that stage. But saying that is what they did, is about as useful as saying that all a pilot has to do is move the correct mechanisms at the right times and then appropriately respond to changing conditions until the flight is over. Okay, that is true, but it doesn't get me any closer to being ready to fly!

I've taught four kids to read. Teaching number one, I was no where near ready to use that "procedure". Not because I did not understand it conceptually, but because I did not know the skills of reading backwards and forwards and inside and out well enough to judge where a child was in the process or how I could scaffold them along. But by number four that is exactly how I did it. Together we read Paw Patrol and My Little Pony twaddle; on day one I stopped every time we got to the words "an" and "am" and coached her through reading them. And every day after that, I increased the difficulty of the lessons exactly as much as she could handle and introduced exactly the phonemes and decoding strategies that she was ready for.

But the problem is, I (or the researchers) could describe that procedure to a novice teacher until we were blue in the face, and s/he still wouldn't be able to teach a child to read because that last step is incredibly vague and requires an experienced teacher who thoroughly knows the material and can "read the room" to gauge why a child is struggle, what they are ready to learn, when it is time to back off, etc.

I worry that studies like this convince people that all we have to do is hand Pokémon cards (or Fountas & Pinnell books) to teachers with minimal subject training and the materials will make up for the fact that the teachers themselves don't know decoding strategies. Just like the whole public school system seems to think that Singapore workbooks and unit blocks make up for the fact that most teachers have very weak math skills.

[HomeAgain]

I absolutely used Pokemon!  Most of the names are phonetic, so when I had a group of boys who were not satisfied with the starter words and stories, I created my own sentences and copywork for them to work with using something they did like.  They learned phonemes and stressed/unstressed syllables with Pokemon, and were rewarded with the monster card when they could read the sentences well.

[bookbard]

There are a lot of early reader Pokemon books and I definitely used those with my boy. I'd read the bits that he couldn't read and then I'd hand it over to him. Actually, I used Pokemon themed worksheets for maths, too (heaps of these online), and we learned about a lot of real life creatures through Pokemon. Oh, and we explored different biomes and imagined which Pokemon would live there. They've learned about Japan and picked up different Japanese words, and it's led to good discussions about metamorphosis vs evolution. Basically, out of all the pop culture stuff, it's one of the kindest, so I'm glad my kids at 10 and 12 are still into it. I do think you can use almost anything to teach with, though. I used to practice early phonics with my boy using a Slugterra online computer game.