• Engage your students in learning with word games.word image by dinostock from Fotolia.com
  
  The more students interact with words, the more likely they are to remember the spelling and meaning of the featured terms. Rote vocabulary and spelling memorization often lead to student boredom. By mixing engaging games into their instruction, teachers can effectively maintain student engagement and encourage them to focus their attention on the learning and retention of new words.
  
  

Hangman

• A rousing game of hangman requires only a pencil and paper and two willing participants. To engage your students in a hangman game, divide them into teams of two. Give each team a sheet of paper and a writing utensil. To play, the students must take turns creating a puzzle. The student puzzle-creator starts by drawing a hangman poll on which to potentially place a hangman, indicating the loss of the game. Next, the student draws a short, horizontal line for each letter in the word. The player then guesses a letter. If the letter is in the word, the game-maker writes it in the place or places it appears. If the letter is not in the word, the game-maker writes it next to the hangman's stand and draws a part of a hanging man starting with the head, then the body, then one arm at a time, finally one leg at a time. If the player guesses all of the letters or the word itself before acquiring all of the hangman parts, he wins.
  
  To tie this game to a lesson, teachers can give students a list of vocabulary words from which to select puzzle terms.
  
  

Ransom Letter Vocabulary

• Students race to cut out letters and assemble vocabulary words in ransom note form in this fast-paced game. To play, the teacher must divide the students into teams of two or three players each. Each team will need several magazines or newspapers, a sheet of paper, scissors, glue and a list of vocabulary words. The teacher then instructs the students to cut letters out of the provided print media and glue the cut letters onto the sheet to recreate the words on the vocabulary list. The first team to successfully recreate the words wins the game.
  
  

Spelling Relay

• Practice spelling with this competitive team game. To begin this game, students must be divided into two teams. The teacher should draw a line down the chalkboard, dividing it into two, and line each team up in two single-file lines on opposing sides of the board. The teacher then reads a spelling word, and one player from each team comes up to write the first letter in the word. After writing one letter, the team member moves to the back of the line, and another team member comes up to the board. If a player notices that a previous team member has made a spelling mistake, he can erase the previous players' letters, but this action constitutes his turn. The first team to successfully spell the word, wins the game.