My parents taught me to read when I was 5 years old. I had not yet begun kindergarten and was already a ready-reader.Somewhere between 1991 and 2001, I decided to stop reading. I was not a bad reader, I could read aloud and understand the characters in the text, but I hated books. However, I loved video games, something some parents would often see as a crime against the literary world.The first game I remember playing was by the Sierra software company called “King’s Quest.” It was a 16-color adventure story of King Graham and his journey through the kingdom of Daventry and his perils of giants, princesses and elves. This may sound far-fetched, but the catch for teaching reading, writing and spelling came in the control of the character.With the exception of a four-direction keypad, the means of discovery and success in this mystic world came from typing queries at an alarming speed. For instance, walking up to a hollowed-out log required the following steps executed with perfect typography and an entertaining back and forth battle with the program:Me: Look in log.Computer: There is a glimmer of gold in the log.Me: Grab gold in log.Computer: You cannot “grab gold”… at least not now.Me: Take gold.Computer: You took the gold.Not only did I learn to type sentences and use deductive logic to crack the code of the computer, but I also learned how to plunder goods from old tree stumps. Early 1990s’ technology rules. Back to the point of relevance and how gaming has kept me from being a mouth-breather molded into a sofa.This game taught me problem solving and spelling by age 6. By the time I was in second grade, I had already beaten “Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past” – a task not easily undertaken by most elementary schoolers. It is a game chock-full of puzzles, story lines, intrigue and deceit.The catch however, was that I had to read text throughout the entire game, while etching mental maps of the 16-bit landscapes. The idea is simple for an older gamer, since memorization of pathways and mapping becomes a requisite with driving, but for an 8-year-old, that’s not always the case.I managed to develop puzzle skills from games and dissect stories that were more involved than some of the assigned texts of the second grade – sorry Ms. Wenner, but “Mr. Poppers’ Penguins” was not nearly as entertaining as “Kings’ Quest” or “Zelda” or the grandfather of intelligence gaming: “The Zork Anthology.” “Zork” fell into a world of it’s own. It had no images, no directional control, no suggestive help; it only hinged on imagination. The program came on 3.25 inch disks and a typical “level” or screen would look like this:”You are standing in a house. There is an open window to your left where you can see the sun setting on the horizon. To your right is a cabinet with fine china inside it, behind you is nothing. Where do you wish to go?”The safe road is to look inside the cabinet for a clue, the more aggressive method is to leave the house, but some people wish to look behind and see what is in the nothingness.”Go backward and look around.”The computer then gives a preachy moral to the short-lived adventurer’s tale.”You have stepped back into oblivion, when we said ‘nothing,’ we meant nothing, try again.”Zork taught imagination, attention to detail and how to create a world based on words. It was similar to books in that aspect, but I could control the character. Perhaps the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series would have been fitting for me, but the allure of sitting at a computer dictating my destiny made me feel superior.So take this situation in your life: You have a door in front of you that is open to a cornfield, a staircase to your left leading to the second floor and a bookshelf to the right of you.(Hint: the bookshelf guards a secret passageway)Both books and video games can teach, but before discounting one, take time to consider the other.Associate editor Marcus Murphree is a senior news-editorial journalism major from Beaumont.