Researchers say video games may be key to teaching youngsters.

Byline: Howard Witt

HOUSTON _ Tired of badgering the kids to quit wasting time with those computer and video games and get started on homework? Here's a news flash for the 21st Century: It turns out many of the games might be better than homework.

In a series of research projects as likely to thrill young people as they are to horrify their parents and teachers, academic experts across the country are unearthing educational benefits in the digital games that surveys show are now played by more than 80 percent of American young people aged 8-18.

At the top of the experts' lists are simulation and role-playing games, often played on the Internet alongside thousands of other participants, because of the vocabulary, reasoning and social skills they can boost. But even some of the most violent games, such as the notorious Grand Theft Auto, have some valuable lessons to teach in the right circumstances, researchers are finding.

Some researchers even suggest supplanting much of the traditional back-to-basics K-12 curriculum with a new generation of game-based materials to capture the increasingly short attention spans of today's youth.…