Self direction with Sonic

My girly is trying to use a handheld Mega Drive. And getting really frustrated with it not doing what she wants.

It's hard to stand back and stop myself from showing her.

The litany of 'If you want to play you play, but if you're frustrated you can put it down,' is getting tiresome, but what is the alternative? What will she learn if I do it all for her?

I'm obviously happy to help her read and find what she's looking for, but I'm not going to play the game for her. I can facilitate her use of the game ('What happens when you press this button?' 'What's happening now?') but I won't tell her what to do.

And guess what this approach led to: she realised that to find the game she wants, she needs to read. 

She wanted 'Sonic and Knuckles,' so we worked out that it had 3 words and started with /s/. Then it was a matter of puzzling it out with logic. She found the game then realised there was another Sonic game underneath.

So, what have we learned by playing on the Mega Drive? Through the intrinsic motivation to play the game we want we have practised:

• letter recognition
• counting  
• logic
• whole word recognition and matching

Not bad for half an hour of work.