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When my kids were little, we spent countless hours playing with language. Almost every time we were in a holding pattern – on public transport, waiting in a queue for an activity, in line at Centrelink – we played verbal games to pass the time. Even last week, in a quiet moment at the end of the day, my almost-15-year-old initiated a few rousing rounds of “I Spy” with his younger sister. They meandered through clues, making them more complex and abstract, and spent half an hour in one room reviving a favourite childhood pastime.
Verbal word games are invaluable for helping kids develop phonemic and phonological awareness and decoding skills (all three vital for reading), listening, speaking, storytelling, recounting, turn-taking, conversational skills, comprehension, vocabulary, working memory (vital for learning to read as readers remember the sounds that they have decoded already and need to blend together to make a word) and so much more.
Phonological and phonemic awareness are oral and auditory skills – I think of them as the reading skills you can practise in the dark. Children need to practise them in order to be ready to learn to read. Generally, parents intuitively play verbal games with kids to help them develop these (and other) skills. This article aims to give you ideas to expand your repertoire, or perhaps modify some well-loved and familiar verbal games.
A Bit of the Lingo….
When children are small, before they learn to read, they often have a tendency to clump the sounds in words together, so that a word is a sound by itself. They usually do not intuitively recognise that words are made up of blended sounds (eg syllables, such as the “car” and “pet” in the word “carpet”), which themselves can be broken down further into individual sounds – English’s 44 phonemes (in this example, /c//a//r//p//e//t/).
Phonological awareness is the understanding that words can be broken into sounds/syllables and that sounds can be blended into words. Phonemic awareness is a special type of phonological awareness, and involves understanding and recognising phonemes.
You can read a lot more about how they help develop reading skills in this article: https://heggerty.org/blog/phonological-awareness-and-phonemic-awareness/#
We will meander through some games that are not only fun, but will make learning to read so much easier. They also help struggling older readers understand language more intuitively and therefore improve their reading skills. Other games are aimed at honing skills once kids are more proficient at using language.
“I Spy” has hidden depths. Never underestimate its versatility and utility in supporting the development of reading. However, the more traditional way of playing, using letter names (as opposed to sounds), is not that useful nor, when it comes down to it, nearly as interesting as other versions. In our family, we have spent almost as much time coming up with clues as actually playing the game. Using starting sounds, ending sounds, middle sounds, rhymes-with, and sounds-like build phonological and phonemic awareness.
Start with the bigger clumps – such as syllables, rhyming sounds, and so on. Once these have been mastered, you can move to phonemes, as the idea of breaking words into smaller and smaller sounds is more complex and foreign than breaking words into syllables.
Coming up with clues that are adjectives, or longer-winded descriptions, helps kids develop an intuitive understanding of “describing words” and also comprehend more complex clues, visualising, and so on.
One person thinks of an object (it can be in the room or not, your choice), and the others are allowed to ask up to 20 questions to figure out what that object is. This is similar to I Spy in mechanics, but builds more on abstract thinking, visualising, and deduction, which are more complex metacognitive skills that are required in comprehending written work. As such, it is more suited to slightly older children, but can be played in its simpler forms starting with younger kids.
“Who Am I?” is a similar game, but thinking of a person (in real life, or a character from a book, film etc).
Players agree on a rhyming family e.g. ‘at’. Players take turns saying a new word that fits the family e.g. hat, cat, mat, bat etc. This can also be done with starting sounds (phonemes) or blends, or middle sounds (e.g. “ee”). Play continues until all possibilities (to the players’ knowledge) have been exhausted.
In its most sophisticated form, where the players include the number of words, broken down into syllables and individual syllables acted out, complete with “sounds-like” clues, charades is a fabulous way to practice phonological and even phonemic awareness. And, it’s a heap of fun, often embarrassing, and frequently ridiculous. What’s not to love?
A game that allows (and even encourages) lying is always a favourite. Summarising a story into one sentence and making it believable involves several literacy skills, as does choosing questions to ask to deduce the veracity (or otherwise!) of the person’s statement. The number of questions other players are allowed to ask to decide if the story is true or not can be limited to increase the difficulty for older players.
There are some complex metacognitive skills at play, but again, like 20 Questions, it can be played in a simpler form by younger children. A really simple story statement such as “I went to the shops yesterday” can be true or false, and younger kids can easily come up with questions to test its veracity, such as “what did you buy?”, “what time did you go?”, “how did you get there?”.
In this way, they can start to build an understanding of how you interrogate ideas and check facts. They can think about how this timeline may fit with what really happened, based on other things they know to be true (or not). And above all else, you can make up very funny whoppers.
In this game, someone chooses a category (e.g. pets). Everyone takes turns to name something from that category that begins with the ending sounds of the previous person’s word (eg dog – goat – tabby cat – tortoise etc). You can use letter names rather than sounds if you must, but again, letter names aren’t great for younger kids. Played with sounds (phonemes), this game is fabulous for developing phonemic awareness and listening skills, as well as helping kids think about categories (a maths skill!) and allowing them to be abstract, playful and cheeky in their choices.
Choose a category (e.g. dinosaurs, names of cities, anything!) and take turns in thinking of items in that category as you move through the alphabet. We often take turns or contribute all at once until we exhaust our knowledge for “A” before moving to “B”. Again, with smaller kids, using phonemes (letter sounds) rather than letter names helps develop phonemic awareness.
Take turns choosing categories so everyone gets a go at categories that they are interested in. Choose obscure things, or categories you know little about, and follow the threads later (when you decide to access the library or Dr Google) to fill in the gaps.
Choose a destination e.g. Tasmania, and then take turns adding things to the suitcase. As you move around and take turns, each person lists all the things that have already been packed, and then adds one more. You can do this randomly, or, to make it easier, move through the alphabet if the people playing know the alphabet (or you can help them with the starting phoneme to move away from letter names!).
For example, the first person says, “I’m going on a trip to Tasmania, and I’m going to take an apple.” The second person says, “I’m going on a trip to Tasmania, and I’m going to take an apple and a boa constrictor.” The third person says “I’m going on a trip to Tasmania, and I’m going to take an apple, a boa constrictor and a car.” You can insist that the choices make sense (boring, mum!), or that anything goes! Playing with choices that make sense could be done if you’re into doing unit studies as a family, and at the end of your unit you’re flexing your knowledge in this game.
This game is fabulous for building working memory, especially if you’re putting random items in your suitcase without sticking to alphabetical order. Playing cooperatively (by helping each other remember or by saying the items together at the same time, but then letting players take turns in adding the new item, and so on) eliminates anxiety for kids that are concerned about getting things right or who have poor working memory to begin with.
The first player starts by naming an object and one of its qualities or characteristics e.g. flowers are colourful. The second player must then name a different object that has the same quality, plus a quality that this new item has e.g. rainbows are colourful, and they come out when it rains.
Play continues in this way e.g. frogs come out when it rains and they can swim; dolphins can swim and they live in the ocean…. And so on. Like the Random Word Game, this involves listening to the previous person. Building on what that person has said helps develop conversation skills.
The game can be kept simpler for kids who need it to be, but can become very complex when playing with kids who are ready for it. You can even play it with kids learning about complex subjects to cement their knowledge.
Collectively, you create a crazy story by using “fortunately” to begin each sentence and then “unfortunately” to kick off the next person’s addition. For example, the first person might start with “Fortunately, the dog found a bone. Unfortunately, it was attached to my leg.” Players take turns building on the story. The next person might add, “Fortunately, it was my left leg, since I use the right for kicking my soccer ball. Unfortunately, I still had to somehow remove the dog from my person.” And so on…. Like Common Quality, this game is also excellent for developing listening, turn-taking and conversation skills, as well as working memory, story-telling, imagination and more. Fortunately, it can be highly entertaining. Unfortunately, it can be neverending…
Simply, choose two things, and ask your fellow players which they prefer. Sure, you can go tame and ask about rabbits versus guinea pigs, or you can go with hard-hitting questions. “Would you rather eat a worm or lick a camel?” The worse the possible choices, the funnier this game becomes. It’s an exercise in absurdity, but it is a great game to build conversation and listening skills, enquiry skills, and help kids think about abstract scenarios and make choices. There is no right or wrong answer, and it’s also a great getting-to-know-you game.
One person kicks off the conversation with a question. Each player continues the conversation using only questions.
This game was played in the most excellent movie Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. If you want a laugh, and some excellent wordplay, look up “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead Questions Game” on YouTube.
As kids become more proficient at the game, hesitations, statements or non-sequiturs lose. Or, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, you can play a whole game of tennis, keeping score. Again, working memory, listening skills and conversation skills are at the forefront with Question Tennis.
There are so many verbal games that hone our skills, and have far-reaching benefits. But even more importantly, they can save our sanity in a queue, keep us amused for hours, help us spend time with our kids, and build relationships.
Otherways 173 Aug 2022
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