Chapter 12: Developing an Electronic Game for Vocabulary Learning: A Case Study

The promise of new technologies to make education more effective and efficient has a long-standing history. As early as the turn of the 20th century, Huey (1908) suggested that students could use recordings to assist in learning to read. Pressey (1926) developed and used a rudimentary teaching machine to improve student learning. Skinner (1958) described an improvement on the machine and set about a series of studies with similar aims to those of Pressey—to improve teaching and learning. The major credit for bringing computer technology to reading instruction is often given to Suppes, Atkinson, Fletcher, and their colleagues (e.g., Atkinson & Hansen, 1966–1967; Fletcher & Atkinson, 1972; Suppes, 1966).