Have you ever noticed that as you play a game regularly, you tend to get better at the game? We have a special name for it when you become better at something – it’s called learning! Indeed, in an ASCD blog article (1.28.22), leading literacy scholar Nell Duke explores What Wordle Reminds Us About Effective Phonics and Spelling Instruction. She notes that Wordle and similar word games are, “highly engaging…. It has many characteristics long associated with motivating and engaging literacy experiences.” Let’s recognize the potential of games for improving word learning and make at least part of our phonics and vocabulary instruction game-like for students.

What Games?

I’d like to share three of my favorite word games with you – WORDO, Word Ladders, and Making (and Writing) Words. All three are simple and easy to do with students of all ages; and students of all ages love playing them.

WORDO

WORDO is simply a word study version of Bingo. It is a great way for students to practice and deepen their understanding of words they may be learning. In WORDO, every student is given a blank WORDO sheet. The sheet can consist of 3×3 boxes for younger children, 4×4 or 5×5 for older students and can easily be made using the “insert table” feature on any word processing program. Of course, each WORDO sheet/grid should cover an entire 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheet of paper (Blank WORDO sheets available at www.timrasinski.com). Then, put on display words that you want students to learn or review. Be sure to put 3-5 more words on display than there are boxes on the WORDO sheet. Otherwise, multiple students are likely to win at the same time, especially with the 3×3 sheet. Students choose words from the display to enter onto their WORDO sheet. Once all students’ WORDO sheets are filled with words, it’s time to play. As the teacher, you randomly call our words from the display, definitions of the words, or other clues to the words (e.g., “a two-syllable word that begins with a consonant blend”). If students have the word on their sheet, they place a mark or marker on the box containing the word. Once a student has a row, column, diagonal, or four corners filled with marks they call out “WORDO!” The student’s sheet is checked for accuracy, and the WORDO sheets are then cleared for another game. Simple prizes can be awarded to winners. WORDO is a great way to review words from different content areas. It is also a good way to motivate students to analyze the internal structure of words as well as their meaning. You can find more on WORDO on my website.

Word Ladders

Word Ladders are a word building game in which students are guided to build a series of words where each new word requires some manipulation of the previously made word. What makes it a game-like activity is that the first word and last word of the ladder are connected in some way. Here’s an example of a word ladder which starts with the word “Base” and works down to “Ball.” Students can either write the words or slide letter tiles around as they move down the ladder. As a teacher, you guide students in going from one word to the next by providing them with the clues for each new word.

1. Base An essential and foundational part of something. Change 1 letter in Base to make a word that means to cook in an oven.
2. Bake Change 1 letter in bake to make a food item you might bake in an oven.
3. Cake Change 1 letter in cake to make a word that means to seize or capture something.
4. Take Change 1 letter in take to make a word that means not wild.
5. Tame Change 1 letter in tame to make another word for a story,
6. Tale Change 1 letter in tale to make the opposite of short.
7. Tall Change 1 letter in tall to make a round object; also combine with the first word to make a popular game played with bats and balls.
8. Ball!

Students find word ladders fun to engage in as they try to determine what the final word in the ladder will be. Equally important, as students move down (or up) the ladder from one word to the next, they must coordinate the structural clues (e.g. change 1 letter) with the meaning clue to make each new word. In essence, the activity requires students to engage in orthographic analyses or mapping as make each new word in the ladder. Yet, because students are only asked to manipulate one or a few letters at a time, the activity is one that allows them to experience success. Research has demonstrated that this sort of guided word building can lead to significant improvements in students’ phonemic awareness among younger students, word decoding, AND comprehension (McCandliss., Beck, Sandak, & Perfetti, 2003). It stands to reason that if students are able to decode the words they encounter in their reading they are more likely to understand the texts in which those words appear.

Making (and Writing) Words (MWW)

Making (and Writing) Words is another word building game-like activity in which the teacher guides students to make words from a given set of letters (vowels and consonants). First described by Pat and Jim Cunningham (1992), MWW begins with the teacher selecting a “secret word” made up of 6-12 letters. Students are instructed to write the letters on a sheet of paper or on individual letter tiles or slips of paper. It may be helpful to distinguish vowels and consonants by different boxes on the sheet or colors on the paper tiles/paper slips. The actual MWW lesson involves the teacher guiding students to make 6 to 12 target words using only the letters from the “secret word” provided at the beginning of the lesson. Clues for each target word can involve word meanings, structural clues (e.g. “this word begins with a consonant blend,”) or simply providing the target word itself. What turns the activity into a game is that the final word in the lesson is the “secret word” that uses all the letters in the lesson. The teacher provides no clues beyond telling students that the secret word uses all the letters. Students find it great fun to be the first in the class to figure out the secret word. The secret word, by the way, can be taken from other areas of study in the classroom curriculum. You can find more about MWW in an article posted on my website. 

Word study and word play can take a variety of forms. My hope in this blog is not to suggest to you that any one word study game is the answer to students’ word learning challenges, but to suggest to all of you creative and artful teachers that when we make word study feel like a game we are much more likely to engage students more deeply in word learning and analysis and much more likely to develop in students a love for the study of words. Isn’t that what teaching and learning is all about – not just teaching a set of discrete literacy skills but to encourage students to love our language to be willing and able to engage in examining and learning how the words in our language work and what they mean.

Sources

Rasinski, T. (2005). Daily Word Ladders-Grades 2-4. New York: Scholastic.

Rasinski, T. (2005). Daily Word Ladders- Grades 4-6 New York: Scholastic.

Rasinski, T. (2008). Daily Word Ladders- Grades 1-2. New York: Scholastic.

Rasinski, T. (2012). Daily Word Ladders – Phonics- Grades K-1 New York: Scholastic.

Rasinski, T. & Cheesman-Smith, M. (2019). Daily Word Ladders- Content Areas, Grades 2-4. New York: Scholastic.

Rasinski, T. & Cheesman-Smith, M. (2019). Daily Word Ladders- Content Areas, Grades 4-6. New York: Scholastic.

Rasinski, T. & Cheesman-Smith, M. (2020). Daily Word Ladders- Idioms. Grades 4+. New York: Scholastic.

References

Cunningham, P.M., & Cunningham, J.W. (1992). Making Words: Enhancing the invented spelling-decoding connection. Reading Teacher, 46, 106-115.

McCandliss, B., Beck, I., Sandak, R., & Perfetti, C. (2003). Focusing attention on decoding for children with poor reading skills: Design and preliminary tests of the word building intervention.Scientific Studies in Reading, 7, 75-104.