One of the major objectives of the new curriculum is to make use of life situations so that the child not only gains experience in living, but is motivated by the necessity to learn. The merits of this new program have been discussed widely by various educators, and there appear ob vious advantages in placing teaching emphasis on problems having social values rather than on isolated facts. Play activities in the form of ^proj ects commonly serve as the medium of instruction in the more progres sive schools. Many teachers are using various types of games which serve as good teaching devices: Woody (28) suggests Dominoes, Parchesi and Lotto as good number experiences in the lower grades ; and Bingo, Old Maids, and Anagrams are used in some schools. Hooper and Stratton (12) find Ring Toss, Bean Bag, Peggity, Peter Rabbit, Jack Straws, Winnie the-Pooh, Tom Mix Circus, etc., successful in grades I and II. Since these games are part of the child's actual environment they furnish excellent material for school experiences ; they are, however, limited in teaching possibilities and are not easily integrated into the various phases of the new curriculum. During the past year there has appeared a series of games especially adapted to the requirements for supplementary material that teaches through play.* In order to determine the efficiency of these games as well as to make an objective analysis of the value of informal activities in academic instruction, we have undertaken several experiments. The fol lowing discussion outlines an experiment to improve reading through the use of educational games. The READ-0 games are built from Gates' Vocabulary List for Pri mary Grades arranged throughout the series according to frequency; IA contains the 72 words most commonly used, IB the 72 next most com mon, IC the next 72, etc., so that the whole series uses 432 words from the first 500 in Gates' list. As some of the 500 are duplicated because of Gates' arrangement according to the different parts of speech, the 432 different words in the READ-0 games cover practically all of Gates' first * READ-O, Series IA and IB, first half Grade I READ-O, Series IC and ID, second half Grade I READ-O, Series IIA and IIB, Grade II Augsburg Publishing Co., Morristown, Tennessee 335