Why Playing Scrabble with your Child is Beneficial

Gone are the days when children's idea of a good time is a non-stop session of storytelling and playing board games. With the rise of technology and the development of gadgets and software that cater to their needs for learning and entertainment, children nowadays mostly spend their time with their noses stuck to their devices. It is why, as a generation of parents and elders that know life without the internet and computer, we must incorporate oldie-but-a-goodie activities that encourage them to learn while having fun without all the screens and buttons. One of the first things that come to mind is Scrabble. 

Why Playing Scrabble with your Child is Beneficial

Scrabble for Kids 

Scrabble is a popular word board game played worldwide. It's a game where you draw tiles randomly and make a word out of the tiles you have. If it's your turn, you'll place the word you have from your tiles on the board, where you should connect a letter of your word to an existing word on the board. You can also choose to use the letter of the world that's already laid out on the board. 

Players can place words horizontally or vertically. Once the word is accepted, you'll be able to earn points by the value of the letters you used and whether a letter or a word is placed on a bonus points spot. But when you can't unscramble the letters in Scrabble, you can take help from scrabblewordcheat.com. The whole process is free and can go a long way to enhance your word writing skills.

In a study conducted, 3 out of every home in America owns a Scrabble board. Through this, we get to hone our minds, practise our skills, strategic thinking, and language, and have fun at the same time. More so, not only do teenagers and adults enjoy Scrabble, but even kids love to play it. However, we all know kids' vocabulary is not yet as broad as adults for them to know a lot of words, especially jargons for technical stuff. Nonetheless, in Scrabble, for you to be able to play it, the complexity of a word and how long the word is doesn't matter. If you know any word, be it as simple as it may be, you can play Scrabble. 

What's good about letting kids play Scrabble and playing with them is that it becomes a learning opportunity for them. Not only do they get to widen their vocabulary by learning new words from others, but they also get to know other skills like critical thinking skills, solving skills, and the likes. 

More so, playing board games is not only beneficial for a child's learning, but it's also an excellent way for families to spend time together. Playing Scrabble becomes a bonding moment you can make as a Saturday night tradition or whatnot that you and your kids will always cherish in your memories.

Scientific Studies about Scrabble 

There are various studies on how Scrabble contributes to vocabulary mastery. Some studies examined fifth-graders, while others researched even younger or older individuals. It is even found also to improve the speaking skills of students in Grade 7 in a study conducted by Harry Dermawan from Jakarta. 

A study conducted by Lutfi Lailatul Fitriah shows that both fifth graders and seventh graders in SMP N 1 Kaliwungu showed significant progress from their pretest to their post-test after being exposed to the game of Scrabble. 

One of the studies conducted among competitive Scrabble players also concluded that Scrabble expertise helps develop visual word recognition in an individual. The players showed vertical fluency as compared to a control group that did not have the same knowledge. Moreover, the competitive scrabble players also manifested semantic deemphasis, signifying smaller concreteness impacts for word responses. 

Why let your child play Scrabble at a young age? 

It helps improve cognitive skills.

One of the most vital cognitive skills a person can have is problem-solving skills. Through Scrabble, a child can hone these skills by creating solutions with their tiles and the possibilities available on the board. It also practices a child's anagramming skills, which also contributes to problem-solving.

It develops a child's fundamental characters.

There are many values a child can learn from Scrabble, such as being patient when one is taking long in their turn, being fair when counting someone else's scores, acceptance when the letters they drew were not in their favour, and more.

It helps them become more social.

More so, since Scrabble is a multiplayer game, your child will be able to practice their social skills. They'll be able to develop social cooperation and bonding with other players.

It improves a child's vocabulary and spelling.

It's no doubt that vocabulary building, not only for children but also for adults, occurs when one plays Scrabble. Through the game of Scrabble, your child will be able to learn difficult words and search for the meaning of them in a dictionary. The more one plays Scrabble, the more they encounter new words every time.

It can foster healthy competition.

At a young age, children must be exposed to social and extracurricular activities, especially competitions. As they grow old, there will be more opportunities for them to compete with others. It's vital that early age, you'll be able to monitor and guide their behaviour and perception of competitions. Healthy competition behaviour is a trait not many find significant, but it can impact a person's outlook and experience of competitions throughout their life.

It enhances creative thinking.

Creative thinking is one of the best skills a child can develop. With creative thinking, a child also fosters resourcefulness and persistence. In Scrabble, you will have to be clever in the way you place your tiles. When you want to score higher, you'll need to think creatively in trying to get points for two words in one go, hooking to another word, pluralising, and such. As children mould their creative thinking, they also develop their strategic skills.

It encourages children to read and know more words.

By continually playing Scrabble and a child wanting to earn more points, he/she will be motivated to read more and learn more words so that when they play, they'll be able to have words up their sleeves no matter what tiles they draw.

It can also be an avenue for math practice.

Who said scrabble for kids is only about vocabulary and language? By playing scrabble, kids also get to practice their math skills by adding up the value of every letter they used, multiplying whenever they lay a word or tile in a bonus spot, and counting their scores.

It gives them time away from gadgets.

Almost everyone in the world now owns a mobile phone, tablet, laptop, or computer. The number of children playing physical games and board games decreases over the years as they now opt to play via gadgets. Playing Scrabble will help you lessen their screen time and encourage them to appreciate board games and word games like Scrabble.