WITS FOR EDUCATORS
What Does the Sentence Say?
A Solution to Writing Phobia
One of the greatest challenges parents face today is getting their kids to write. Let’s face it: children often look at writing assignments with dread and confusion. Our school system now demands of second graders written work that fourth and fifth graders produced 50 years ago. Much of what our current curriculum materials demand is developmentally inappropriate, but few young parents understand this or have the time to read what current brain research has to say on the subject.
The first step in relieving the stress on both parents and students is to recognize the obvious: you can’t write a paragraph until you can easily write a sentence. Learning to write an interesting sentence can be a boring, tedious, or even stressful exercise or it can be fun, interesting, and enjoyably challenging. The former will bear scant fruit, while the latter will produce willing and often eager writers.
A new game on the market, What Is the Sentence, from Sheformar International, is a solution to this problem. What is the Sentence, is an easy-to-play, yet unique card game with amazing versatility. It can be played as a solitaire game, a fun family game, or even a team game. There are enough variations to keep it challenging for the most word proficient adult, so you will never outgrow What Is the Sentence.
The game includes four cards: Vowels, Consonants, Action Cards, and Steal Cards. Also included are four timers (15, 30, 45, and 60 seconds) and a die. The basic game involves dealing 4-6 Consonant Cards and one Vowel Card to each player. One of the 67 Action Cards is also drawn and read to the players. The Action Card gives some sort of instruction for that round of play. The great variety of Actions can include:
· Use an adjective in your sentence.
· Use the name of a state in your sentence.
· Use a musical instrument in your sentence.
· Use a mode of transportation in your sentence.
· Use a part of the body in your sentence.
· And on, and on, and on….
For instance, if your cards are R, A, C, M, P and the Action Card says, “You must create a sentence with at least one color in it,” your sentence could be:
Make A Purple Cow Run.
Or
Color My Rumpled Apricot Purple.
Or
Please Manufacture a Red Cat.
Thus, players will create 5–7-word sentences, many of which will be laugh-out-loud funny, with little stress but lots of challenge.
The game designers thought of nearly everything. They have special instructions for children under 7 years old to make it easier for them to play and compete. They also have alternate game instructions for Advanced Play. For a bonus, an interesting Fun Fact is included on each Action Card so players will learn even more.
What is the Sentence, is ideal for children with short attention spans; you can play 3-4 rounds in only five minutes! It is also a good “hands-on” activity as your cards are flat on the table but must be moved around to get them in the right order for your sentence. This gives fidgety hands something to do.
Once children get used to making fun sentences with simple instructions, they will be more comfortable creating short writing assignments. This can even be a continuation of the game. After making a sentence, write a paragraph beginning with that sentence. Make every other sentence in the paragraph start with one of the letters on your cards. Or, for a more advanced version, make every sentence in the paragraph start with one of the words in your sentence. Many of these paragraphs will be strange and quite amusing. Parents, be sure to join in the fun. When children hear your funny sentences, they will be eager to outdo you! This is only an exercise, but it shows children how you can play with words and have a lot of fun. You will soon be inventing your own ways to play and make creative sentences.
Don’t get impatient. Play the game as-is until your children make their sentences easily. If you rush ahead to writing paragraphs, you will add too much stress. Once the children can easily create sentences, you can move cautiously toward writing paragraphs. Do it as a team at first so you can model how to do it.
What Is the Sentence? Developmental Philosophy
What Is the Sentence? (WITS) has been developed around the notion that fun and education go hand in hand. When people are actively engaged in game play, they experience better skill mastery and retention as they have fun discovering relationships in their learning. Our game features dynamic, interactive game play among players of all ages, keeping them engaged and helping them make connections between grammar skills and everyday spoken language. Players gain new language skills, practice skills they’ve learned, and enhance their skills through listening to the language of other players. Through the fun of game play, learning becomes active in their lives.
A growing body of research agrees with our developmental view. A study conducted by The Learning Key, Inc. found the following:
Board games are an important tool to provide hands-on and heads-on skill and knowledge development for people of all ages on all subjects. Not only do well-designed games create an engaging atmosphere, they also provide a non-threatening, playful, yet competitive environment in which to focus on content and reinforce and apply learning. Mistakes are useful and point out what we need to learn. The board itself provides a visual metaphor to help connect information.
Game elements, discussions, and problem solving with fellow team members about the content are vehicles for learning. Subtle redundancy to reinforce learning and insure retention should be incorporated into the game design. Good questions, problems to solve, and situations to consider allow players to think through and apply what they learn. Effective games serve to organize information in a conceptual framework and to make it concrete. They provide analogies and metaphors to link new information. When played in teams, members learn together; no one ever feels singled out for not knowing an answer. Questions help to verify understanding and to
signal where more learning is needed. For those who learn best from concrete specifics, games transform abstract concepts. Others, who need to begin with the big picture, are supported by the metaphor(s) of the game itself. Games are ideal to accommodate different learning styles.
In addition to requiring critical thinking, team-based board games help to build communication and relationship skills as players work face-to-face to answer questions or solve problems and see that together they often figure out something they thought they didn’t know. The power of collaboration becomes apparent to all and, in organizational settings, can transform working relationships.
Elizabeth N. Treher, Ph.D., Learning With Board Games: Tools for Learning and Retention (http://www.thelearningkey.com/pdf/Board_Games_TLKWhitePaper_May16_2011.pdf)
Research has shown a strong correlation between spoken language and literacy development. In their study of the link between spoken language and literacy, authors Fletcher-Campbell, Soler, and Reid state:
…children who arrive at school with weaker verbal abilities and literacy knowledge are much more likely than their classmates to experience difficulties in learning to read during the primary grades. (Approaching Difficulties in Literacy Development: Assessment, Pedagogy, and Programmes, Sage Publications, Ltd, 2009, p.26)
According to research presented by The Encyclopedia of Early Childhood Development, 12% of children entering school in the U.S. and Canada begin their educational experience with deficits in speaking and listening skills. (http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/language-development-and-literacy/according-experts/literacy-outcome-language-development-and-its, accessed on 10/1/16. )
It’s clear to see that literacy development depends heavily on effective spoken language. WITS helps children of all ages work toward mastering speaking and listening skills, thereby giving them access to the building blocks of literacy on which reading is developed. As children play, they learn from not only constructing their own meaningful sentences, but also from listening to the sentences created by their friends, classmates, siblings, or parents.
Investment: Teacher Guide $200
Complete Set (Parent and Teacher Guide) $250