Applying the Gamification Approach as a Learning Strategy to Improve Early Childhood Literacy Abilities

This study examines the effectiveness of applying a gamification approach as a learning strategy to improve literacy. The research focuses on 15 children aged 5-6 years enrolled at the Doa Ibu Makassar Early Childhood Education Center in South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia. This study uses a preexperimental research design with a one-group pretest-posttest design to analyze the development of children's literacy skills. Data were collected through observation and literacy skill assessment sheets. The results were analyzed using the N-Gain Score Test. The study showed that the effectiveness of gamification implementation increased to 0.7188, with a percentage value of 71.88%, placing the intervention in the “moderately effective” category with a range of 56-75%. These findings suggest that gamification is a promising strategy for improving early literacy skills. This study has limitations, including a small sample size, and the absence of a control group prevents definitive causal conclusions about the impact of the intervention. Future research should involve larger and more diverse samples and include a control group to strengthen the validity of the results.