My Top Five Language Arts Game Recommendations for Use in the Classroom
by Karen Luciana

I want to play a game to reinforce and enhance reading and writing concepts. Where do I look?  Right here. The following is a list of my top 5 game recommendations. These games will strengthen skills your students need to develop in Language Arts.

To Practice the Writing Process

Go to Press! (by Learning Resources): Players mimick the job as a newspaper editor as they move along a game board.  They look for errors in punctuation, capitalization, grammar, spelling, and verb tense.  The first player to complete a finished newspaper wins.

For Sentence Building

Sentence Says by MarBan.   Players are given letter cards and must build sentences using those cards.  They choose words that begin with the letters. The words in their sentences, the more points they earn.

For Vocabulary Reinforcement

Buzzword (by Patch)  Students use clues to figure out a keyword, and then phrases are built from that keyword.  Points are awarded based on how many phrases are guessed correctly.

For Spelling/Vocabulary Development

AmuseAmaze (by HL Games)  AmuseAmaze requires players to use letter tiles and spell words.  Players must race to spell their way through a maze.  This game is fun, challenging, and can be played over several sessions, so teachers can set it up on a back table and use it as a center during a Language Arts block.

For Describing and Elaborating

Portrayal (by Braincog).  In this game, players look at a picture and must give instructions on how to draw it, but words must be chosen carefully. The objects is to get others to draw the EXACT picture, so your instructions must be precise.  This game is an excellent tool in demonstrating and learning the expository writing process.

Best of luck in incorporating these games into your classrooms!

I suggest using them as centers or even as guided reading lessons, where students must use comprehension strategies to read the instructions in order to play.  As an extension, as your students to re-write the instructions, as though they were to teach the game to a younger child.  Better yet, the highest order of learning is to evaluate, so your students could write their own game reviews after playing a rotation of each game.

Are you in need of Math recommendations?  Next month, I will describe those games I find most useful to reinforce math skills.