Primary school pupils in the UK could soon be using the Nintendo DS as part of classroom activities designed to boost cognitive skills.

A scheme is being tested at 900 primary schools in Scotland, with children being given DS handhelds for 'brain training' exercises.

20 minute morning sessions of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training are reportedly aiding reading, problem-solving and puzzles; not to mention concentration and behaviour.

Maths tests taken at the beginning and end of a 10 week trial showed an average improvement of 10% per pupil. "Game-based learning can provide dynamic and culturally relevant contexts that engage, motivate and challenge today’s young learner," said Derek Robertson, of Learning and Teaching Scotland.

In Japan, DS-based games are used to teach 2,000 daily "Kanji" characters to kids.

Link http://play.tm/story/16839

wow- i wish my school would do that too

or maybe that 10% increase is because of what they learned in class during that 10 week period...i thought you learn things in school

i assume they have control groups in the study.

+1

I agree. Its not like the only learning they had was brain training.

I wish they made me play my DS in school, mind you when I was in school the gameboy colour was still cutting edge technology and we used PCs with like 64Mb of RAM, simpler times.

Maybe it was 10% more than normal learning in the same period of time, This data could of also been checked with previous years to see if it had an effect.

Can't my school do that?