How to Play Scrabble Junior
How to Play Scrabble Jr.
Teaching your kids how to play Scrabble Junior gives children 5-7 years old a fun tool to learn the spelling of words, while playing a board game with the family. Not only do you give your reading-age child an extra way to learn vocabulary and word spelling, but you also show your son or daughter a window into the world of Scrabble and word games.
It’s never too early to learn better word skills. Because Scrabble Jr. is targeted at children in those pivotal years when reading and writing is their main classroom goal, learning this game gives kids a boost in their studies – often without them exactly realizing they’re studying for class while they play a fun board game.
Kids who are already ahead of the curve want to show off, so why wait until they’re 8-10 to start showing off at big person Scrabble?
Scrabble Junior’s format is a relaxed form of Scrabble, where learning new words and thinking of old words is more important than scoring big points. I doubt you’ll see an article called “How to Win at Scrabble Junior” on this site, but you never know (requests, anyone? 
).
Here’s how to play Scrabble Junior.
Play Starts Like Classic Scrabble
Scrabble Junior starts just like classic Scrabble. Put the game board on the kitchen table or coffee table. Everyone gets 7 letter tiles. Decide who goes first in some fair and equitable way, or let the youngest go first.
Use Letter Tiles to Fill in the Words on the Board
Use the letters in your rack to spell out the words on the Scrabble Jr gameboard. This is where Scrabble Junior deviates radically from Scrabble, because there are a select few words already spelled out on the game board.
This means your child is learning specific words. The variation from game to game is determined by which letters you draw. Scoring is done in the same way as regular Scrabble, though; add up the points of the letters in your word.
Keeping Score
Keep score as you would in Scrabble. Also, draw new letters when you’ve placed letters down on the board.Scoring the game and declaring a winner is option. That’s not the point of playing Scrabble Junior with 6-year olds.
Passing Is an Option
If you don’t use letter tiles during your turn, you can “pass” and draw all-new letter tiles. Passing happens a lot more often in Scrabble Junior, since you are more restricted in word plays.
Go Until the Board is Full
Continue until all the words on the Scrabble Junior game board are filled. If you run out of letters in your letter dispenser before this happens, the game ends.
At that point, add up the scores and the winner is the one with the most points. Remember to point out to everyone that anyone learning how to spell better is winning at Scrabble Junior.
Why Play Scrabble Junior?
Your children get to match their letter tiles to the letters on specifically-chosen words on the board, so your child gets used to seeing how these particular words are built.
Word selections include “queen”, “apples”, “buzz” and “television”. Scrabble helps develop peoples’ skill at forming words, so Scrabble Junior helps reinforce all those lessons your children are learning at school.
Many Scrabble Junior game boards come with a full Scrabble board on the other side. If you find your child has mastered Scrabble Junior or tends to get bored with the game, just flip the gameboard over and see how your child does at Classic Scrabble.
Related Scrabble Posts
How to Replace Scrabble Pieces and Tiles
Z Words – Scrabble Words with Z in Them
Speed Scrabble Rules
How to Play Scrabble on Facebook
How to Play Strip Scrabble
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 5:10 pmand is filed under Scrabble, Words. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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