Every morning at 8:50, eighth-grade teachers at Otokoyama Higashi Junior High School bring out plastic baskets stacked with electronic devices. For 10 minutes, 122 students use styluses to scrawl English words like "woman" and "tree" on touch screens. Electronic voices beep responses like "Cool!" if the children spell the word correctly, and a mocking "Come on!" if they get it wrong.

The students are tapping away on Nintendo Co.'s DS videogame machine, a portable device customarily reserved for games like Pokémon and Super Mario Bros.

"Work sheets were such a pain," says Minori Yamanaka, a 13-year-old student, during a short break between classes. "These exercises feel like a game."

Behind the fastest-selling portable videogame player in Japan is an unusual shift in the culture of gadgets: People are clamoring for it not just for games, but also to keep a household budget, play the guitar, and study the Buddhist scripture Heart Sutra. Since its introduction in 2004, the DS, which responds to writing and speech, has spurred software makers to fill the Japanese market with an eclectic array of reference guides, digital books and study tools.

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