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School SCRABBLE® Activities: Issue #10

Educators and parents have been asking us for more School SCRABBLE® activities. Here they are! Every two weeks, a new page will be posted. We welcome your questions and suggestions. Send them to Cindy McCaffery.

Fun With Words

January 29-February 9, 2001

Read the questions about the English language to students. Then have students work in small groups. Provide each group with one of the questions and give them 10 minutes to try to come up with the answer. Allow groups to use dictionaries and other resources. (Answers to each question are in parentheses.)

[cartoon of a person coughing]

  1. What do we call this kind of sentence: "Step on no pets."? (A PALINDROME - it reads the same way forward and backward.)

  2. What is the longest one-syllable word in the English language? (SQUIRRELED)

  3. What is the dot over the "i" called? (TITTLE)

  4. How many different ways can you pronounce the letter group "ough"? Give words as examples. (9: ROUGH, DOUGH, THOUGHT, PLOUGH, THROUGH, BOROUGH, SLOUGH, COUGH, HICCOUGHED)

  5. What English words begin and end with the letters und? (UNDERFUND and UNDERGROUND)

  6. Without rearranging any of its letters, how many words can you find in the word "therein?" (13: the, there, therein, he, her, here, herein, er, ere, re, rei, rein, in)

  7. What is the only word in the English language that ends in "MT"? (DREAMT and its compounds)

[cartoon of a foot and a dog]

[cartoon of a child sleeping]

When students have finished, have groups report their findings. Then challenge students to find words that are palindromes (words that read the same forward and backward), such as NOON, MOM, DAD, EYE, and words that are not palindromes but form different words when they are read forward and backward, such as KEEP/PEEK, SPAN/NAPS, YAM/MAY. When groups are done, have them share their word lists. Point out that these words are useful to know when students play the SCRABBLE® game. DOOM, for example, may not hook on to a word on the board, but MOOD may. They can make their own words using the suffix or add the suffix to a word already on the game board.

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Browse our archives for back issues from 2000 (issues #1-8) and 2001 (issue #9 and on).

HASBRO is the owner of the registered SCRABBLE® trademark in the United States and Canada. © 2008 HASBRO. All rights reserved. "SCRABBLE® Brand Crossword Game" is the proper way to refer to this unique group of word games and related properties marketed by HASBRO. "SCRABBLE®" is not a generic term. To use it as such is not only misleading but also does injustice to the company responsible for the trademark's longtime popularity. All we ask is that when you mean SCRABBLE® Brand Crossword Game, you say so. 

The SCRABBLE® trademark is owned by J.W. Spear and Sons, PLC, a subsidiary of Mattel, Inc. outside of the United States and Canada. 

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