Games for English

Games for English

Kirsty James

In addition to the verbal games outlined in Pavlina’s article (In The Dark – Word Games for Home Education), there are many options for pen and pencil games, as well as card, board and online games for students of all ages. Some games focus on specific skills such as spelling or vocabulary, whilst others are broader and include soft skills such as creativity and problem solving.

Pen and paper games have the advantage of being portable and inexpensive. These are ideal for when you are stuck in the doctor’s waiting room, or in down time between activities We have enjoyed:

• Word searches (my kids liked to make them for their siblings)
• Constantinople (choose a long word and recombine letters to make as many words of three or more letters as possible)
• Scattergories (choose a category and letter of the alphabet (or phoneme for younger kids) and name as many things as you can which start with that letter. If you want to score, words nobody else used score highest. 
• Hangman – if you don’t like the hangman image use something else (like a drawing of a bug with head, body, and six legs)
• Crosswords – we enjoyed doing these collaboratively and for over a year had a giant crossword poster on the wall that we and our visitors worked together to complete. When we subscribed to Newsademic the vocabulary crossword was one of the boys’ favourite sections. We have also tried making our own crosswords, which required lots of dictionary work to find words to fit some of our gaps. More complex crosswords include anagrams, and creating anagrams of our names or simple sentences has been the cause of much hilarity. 

Many of these games are also available online, or as apps. Screen-based games can work well for kids who struggle with the physical act of writing. App-only games such as Wordle and Quordle have become popular. I enjoy doing these with my teen, other families compete to see who can get the answer in the fewest guesses. 

We have a number of commercial games which provide good opportunities for spelling and vocabulary practice. 

Boggle is an old favourite, shake the dice and create as many words as you can with consecutive letters before the timer runs out.

Bananagrams is designed as a competitive game, but can be collaborative too. I have used this as a group activity in a co-op. The basic tiles can also be used to create your own games.

Scrabble is a classic, but seldom gets played in our household due to our different playing styles – apparently I favour winning over ‘opening up the board’. 

Using word association to hint at a secret target word requires a good vocabulary and lateral thinking. Using pictures or gestures to describe a word or phrase is also fun. Games that come under this category include Pictionary, Taboo, Chameleon, Codenames, and Charades. In Apples to Apples, players are provided with a description (adjective) card and must choose a thing (noun) card that is the best/worst match. Justifying your choice before judging can require verbal dexterity, and as each card has a definition of the word, it’s great for acquiring new vocabulary.

Other games focus on storytelling or conversational skills. Communication is at the heart of any language, and games which encourage vivid word choices and reward creativity are popular for all ages. Younger children can create sentences based on word cards. I made my own when the children were younger and we would pick a noun, adjective and verb and make a sentence (using as many other words as they wished). Mad libs are another version of this, and in addition to the books, you can find many free versions online. 

Story cubes (either the purchased version on DIY options) are great and can be personalised to include people, places or items that are relevant to your family. Each player throws the dice and creates a story based on the images on the top faces. The Storymatic Kids provides three or four cards per player around which a story must be created, for example “pirate”, “person who must take care of an egg” “lost” and “mountain”. Teens might prefer the adult version of the game. Raconteur is a similar (but out of print) game which can be found second hand. Pitchstorm is most suited to older teens and requires verbal gymnastics to pitch movie ideas based on a character card and a plot card to an executive. The starting point might be ‘A mime with magical powers’ who is ‘searching for a stolen nuclear bomb’.To make it more challenging, the executive may add a note card to the pitch (‘What if this was set in Biblical times’).

Other conversation games are designed to practice social skills and strengthen bonds within a family or group. The Art of Conversation is a commercial game (with a Children’s version available) but there are free lists available online which can easily be used to create a cheap home edition. Whoonu is another game which encourages players to learn about one another. You may be surprised to learn that your friend likes anchovies more than sci fi, or museums more than chocolate. At a recent home ed camp this game was a hit with teens and adults. As with many of my favourite games, it’s no longer produced, but can be found in op shops. 

Games can be a great way to practise particular skills such as rhyming, or consolidate knowledge of sight words, initial sounds, adjectives, synonyms etc. There are hundreds of options for these kinds of games on Pinterest or websites like Teachers Pay Teachers. Many use well-known game formats such as bingo, dominoes and I Have, Who Has?. Print and Play (PNP) games are great for specific skills as they are often used only for a short time, so do not need to be particularly robust. There are also more sophisticated PNP options available, which are worth printing on card and laminating. Examples include Handsome and Wordsy. These are professionally designed games, which are inexpensive (usually $5 USD or less).

Games are a great way to get kids reading, from simple words upwards. Many games only require reading when it’s your turn, so are not overwhelming. We are a gaming family, and when the kids were younger would often team up non-readers with older siblings or parents, and the desire to be able to play games without a partner was a keen motivator for my children to learn to read. Games often introduce complicated vocabulary and ‘difficult’ words such as proper nouns. This means that nearly all games have an English component, in the same way as most include maths concepts even though that may not be the purpose of the game. A game can teach or consolidate a concept without lecture or boredom, and can work well for kids who resist learning or are deschooling.

There’s such variety available that there’s something for every budget, for every age group, and for those who are collaborative as well as competitive. Game preference is individual, but the best games are entertaining rather than worthy; games created purely for educational purposes tend to gather dust at the back of the cupboard.

See our Pinterest board for more ideas https://www.pinterest.com.au/HomeEducationNetworkAustralia/english/

Otherways 173 (August 2022)