Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Scrabble your letters

My husband and I love a good competitive game of Scrabble.  We play with enough frequency that we bought the fancy board with the turntable and dividers for each square.  We kept our older board because Aidan loves trying to play Scrabble.  He randomly places the etched wooden tiles around the board and asks, "What word did I make?  Can you read it?"  I humor him and sound out the letters, then remind him that letters need to be in a certain order to make words.  Sometimes he gets frustrated by this, wanting to play the game the same way we do.

When Aidan began recognizing and deciphering the letters of the alphabet, I realized that my job as a parent was really twice as big as I thought.  It's not a twenty-six letter job, but a fifty-two letter job!  He loves playing with letter tiles, but they only have upper case letters on them.  I believe in teaching him the proper format when it comes to words and writing, because we certainly do not write using all upper case letters!  Here is where a permanent marker came in handy.  I simply flipped the tiles over and wrote the corresponding lower case letter on the back of each one.  I found this to be very helpful with certain letters that he knew one version of, but not the other.  For example, Aidan knows the lower case letter "i" very well when he sees it, because it is in his name. However, he doesn't know the upper case version very well yet.  


His interest in wanting to know how to make words, materialized from his desire to know how to win at Scrabble.  Once you've hit the age where board games are appropriate for your child, winning, becomes a whole other "monster," and involves many discussions about what it means to be a good winner and a good loser.  The real rules for Scrabble are obviously not age appropriate for Aidan, but modified play is!  Showing Aidan the numbers in the corners of each wooden tile, I explain that to win, you must earn the most points by making words.  


Me: "What word would you like to know how to spell?"  It's important to make letters and writing interesting to a child by using words they are either interested in, like favorite toys or characters, or have possession of, like their name.  It's not just appealing to their likes, it makes it more memorable for them, increasing the chance they will actually retain it, by attaching it to something they love.


Aidan: "Karate chop."  (Something he likes to pretend with his dad.)


I write the words out on a piece of paper and instruct Aidan to copy the words by finding the corresponding letter tiles.  We talk about some of the letters he does know, and some of the ones he does not.  






When he's finished, I help him read the words he made and add up the numbers on each of the tiles, a little number recognition too!  We were able to discuss less and more as well.  The word karate has more letters, but is worth less points than chop in the game of Scrabble.  Matching letters and reading the word is great repetition.  Aidan "reads" his words to his dad, then its on to finding another word!

If you want more letters, or don't want to sacrifice your game pieces, you can find blank wooden tiles at craft stores to purchase.  Don't be afraid to use different surfaces too, the board is not required, remember, its modified play!

Like Little Moments Facebook Page to stay up to date on all our moments and more!

12 comments:

  1. What a brilliant solution. I felt the same way about teaching lower case letters as well, so we focused on finding Alphabet books that had both the upper and lower case letters, and on doing letter identification in the real world. Now, at 2.5 yo, he recognizes all his upper case (has for awhile actually), but he also gets most of the lower case letters correct.

    ReplyDelete
  2. When I taught kindergarten, my colleagues and I always debated whether we should introduce students to upper or lowercase letters first. I leaned your direction. I love the idea of setting kids up for success by helping them learn the letters they will see most often from the start. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes! I think it's very important that if they are going to learn it, they should learn the right way to make a word the first time!

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is a great idea. I think I will make some tiles, maybe to add to my outdoor classroom.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is a fun idea- I think we will be using it!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I did write the letters in lowercase on the back like you did and I put them in a bottle mixed with dry white rice and made it an I spy game! My pre-k kids love shaking up the bottle till they find all the letters in their favorite words :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love sensory bottles, and that is definitely a great way to keep letter tiles fresh and interesting for children.

      Delete
  7. Such a great idea! I agree with you about teaching the proper way to write. There is no point in starting with upper case just to have to break habits. You're opening reminded me of a funny story my mom loves to share. When I was four I said, "Mom what does jlejiod spell?" She said that it doesn't spell anything, and I giggled and replied, "Ha! I know a word you don't know!" Thanks for linking up to The Sunday Showcase.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Allison, you honestly made me laugh! I can clearly picture a young girl saying that :)

      Delete
  8. I love this idea, what a great way to teach reading! Thanks sharing on Saturday Show and Tell. I hope you'll be back this week with more great stuff!
    -Mackenzie
    http://www.cheeriosandlattes.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're a Featured Favorite on Saturday Show & Tell this weekend on Cheerios and Lattes!
      Mackenzie :)

      Delete
  9. Our daughter attends a Montessori school here and they begin with lowercase letters, too! We don't have scrabble but we do have bananagrams- we can do this! Thanks!

    ReplyDelete

I love hearing from you, stop by any time!
-Heather