If Ed Balls had said 1991, I might have been inclined to believe him. I still blame the parents...

damn cheap sensationalist rag. report REAL news for once.

This coming from a gutter press that requires a reading age of 8? Maybe they are going for the most ironic article of the year...

er, right, like reading harry potter is more fun than shooting a bunch of people in a Halo Deathmatch....

I see the point he is trying to make but blaming games is not the way.
Kids read stuff all the time, how does this guy think they work out how to actually play the games?
They dont read the manuals or any in game text do they?!
And apart from Harry Potter, what is there for kids to read?
The BFG?
Moby ****?
The Bible?

Does this guy seriously think that if we got rid of every console on the planet that kids would start reading?
No, they wouldnt.

Reading isnt cool, it never has been and it never will be. Thats the bottom line.

This goes a lot deeper than blaming videogames......

growing up in the 80's, games helped me with my reading skills.

Ha! This is the biggest joke ever! I totally blame papers like th Sun coz they is wot dun it to us.... I once read a copy of the Sun on a plane as a friend bought it, and I remember picking out poor grammar and spelling in several articles. Don't go blaming others first you ignorant morons (that's The Sun I'm addressing there.) How about writing some proper articles for people to read rather than going on about the size of Gemma Atkinson's *****?

Funny thing is the people that bought the Sun and read this article are so going to believe it as well.

...actually, it's not the Sun that says it, it's Ed Balls- and the paper doesn't agree with him. If you flick forwards to the comment section, they call Balls out for saying it, and lay the blame on a failing school system.

Doesn't excuse their sensationalism, mind.

There's an article a bit further on in today's Sun about Kwari being sick and irresponsible, too.

Not that I read the Sun, mind- there was just a copy at work, honest.

Reading is but one of many skills that come with education. Our levels are high, but not as high as they once more. Have our children improved in other areas such as numeracy or logic during this same time period?

It is only if we are given all the facts that we are able to judge.

I have 6 year old twins and a little one of 5 who play videogames. They can still read, I sat down and taught them.

Do children not have games in the countries we are being compared with?

if anything is to blame for lack of reading skills, it's sms text messages. my cousin is a teacher and has had essays handed in by college studentsthat feature sms style writing. one guy even put an "up arrow" instead of writing the word "up".

It is very difficult to play many games without the ability to read. It is even more difficult to play on-line games without reading, spelling and typing skills.

It's not video games to blame but the parents.

You are so right. People of all abilities play games. The overall downward trend in reading ability probably just mirrors an increasing lack of the parental reading habit and changing priorities of parents generally.

Those kids who are serious enough about games to design and make them, however, will certainly have to fight to read enough - they'll need over and above the material that most schools or parents provide. I needed AAB in my A-levels in order to gain entry to my games programming degree. Good luck kids.

Kids are having trouble reading? Thats awesome! that gives all the kids who actually give a **** about their education a greater chance of succeeding in the job force. If kids choose not to read, and grow up pumping gas, and waitressing, then it serves them right. Me? I play video games, and I read books.

Nothing to do with games. Teaching standards are the problem. Allowing text speak in an English exam was something I remember hearing about. Until people as a whole stand up to the rubbish spouted out from the ones in power, it's downhill all the way...

if its in The Sun, then it MUST be true! what a **** paper read by the very mongs that purchase 18 rated games for their children and blames everyone else when their kids are raised as criminals

Games are international. Kids in France, Germany, Spain and pretty much every country in the world are playing them these days. Why are their kids becoming better readers when they are playing the same games that our kids are?

I think we are just growing thicker kids now due to global warming...

OK so from some of the comment I've read, I can see that whoever said that videogames are bad for literacy may be wrong in saying that and I believe that videogames may have a benefit to literacy as a lot of them have 'subtitles' which can be read and children could perhaps learn from this.

But why can't someone design a box system similar to the one currently used and available for TVs which parents can set a daily play time limit on it and have the same yellow and red card system, unless the TV box that already does this will also stop the consoles being played too.

That'd be an ideal solution for parents concerned about this.

Given the sophistication of current consoles, the platform owners could easily implement a system to limit how long the console can be kept on for per day. By doing it in software, it could then prompt the child to save before forcin****utdown. The onus is on Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo to do this (when it suits them, they go on about adding parental controls to limit access to violence and sex, but how about implementing a time limit?)

However, the kids who use consoles are clever, and the parents who complain about their kids using consoles generally don't know how to use them. Therefore, the parents would not set it up and regulate it properly, and the children would easily find a way around it (by logging into the 'parental account', using some social engineering like "mummy, the computer's broke, what's your password so I can fix it?") We therefore have to wait for the console-savvy children to become adults and hence be able to regulate their children's use sensibly. But by then VR and Robots will be taking over the world and giving the Sun something completely different and equally outrageous to talk about!