GAMES! GAMES! & MORE GAMES!

Using games in the classroom is not a new idea. Even middle schoolers LOVE to play games. When I first started teaching, my students would find practice reading and spelling their given words monotonous and boring. When instructing students in the multi-sensory approach, students receive many opportunities to practice the pattern using the word-building method. This "builds a close association or link between what the student sees in print (visual), what the student hears (auditory), and what the student feels as he of she makes the sounds of the letters and writes (kinesthetic-large muscle movements, and sensations in the mouth and on the fingertips) (Gillingham & Stillman, 1997). When students are practicing, it is essential that they follow the same "precise, definite, and unvarying procedure- because otherwise one association or another will be lost" (Gillingham & Stillman, 1997). As you can imagine, middle school students began to show pushback.  While repetition and repeated practice with the pattern that the students are learning are essential, I wanted to find a way to spice it up. By using games in the classroom, it improves student engagement, interest, motivation, extend learning, and improves a students lifelong learning desires (Bourgonjon, De Grove, De Smet, Van Looy, Soetaert,  & Valcke, 2013).

After hitting garage sale after garage sale and second hand stores, I have built up a collection of board games for my classroom. The games include Chutes & Ladders, Candy Land, Apples to Apples, Sorry, Trouble, etc. Each game is played as normal, but with a twist. Before each student takes their turn, they roll the dice. If they roll: 1-3 they read a word or a 4-6 they spell a word. I usually write this on the board to remind the students. Before taking their turn, they must read or spell the word correctly. The game then plays as normal and the student takes their turn. I have a deck of words written on notecards ready to go that correspond to the given pattern that we are working on. This way, I pull a card and either show the student if they are reading the word, or read the word to the student if they are spelling. Students follow the same unvarying procedure to read or spell their words. While we do not play games everyday, my students BEG for game day. On special occasions, I have offered my students the opportunity to play the game without spelling and/or reading and they ALWAYS choose to use the words in the games.

References 
Gillingham, A., & Stillman, B. W. (1997). The Gillingham manual: Remedial training for children with specific disability in reading, spelling, and penmanship. Cambridge: Educators Publishing Service. 

Bourgonjon, J., De Grove, F., De Smet, C., Van Looy, J., Soetaert, R., & Valcke, M. (2013). Acceptance of game-based learning by secondary school teachers. Computers & Education, 67. 21-35. 

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