Word games include a number of games, from leisurely nonsense word games to more academic advanced vocabulary games. In essence, all of these games require the third-grade student to do one thing: use her knowledge of word families, prefixes and suffixes to understand new words. In nonsense word games, a two meaningful words are put together in a meaningless fashion, and students guess the meaning using prefix and suffix clues. In an advanced vocabulary game, the teacher presents words that third-grade students are unlikely to know and asks the students to infer the meaning of the words.
The teacher can present a mystery game, in which he presents to the students a story via spoken word, reading or video. The students must use the logical reasoning skills they have learned in class to solve the mystery. For example, you may present students with a letter from a person that contains context clues hinting at where the person hid a jewel. Mention in the letter that the man is handicapped, for instance, and have the man hint that the jewel is in his “Xane” with “X” being a smudged out letter. Students should infer that the jewel is in the man’s cane.
This game presents students with pictures in which the only context is a set of words arranged in a specific manner to make a phrase that third-grade students should be familiar with. The students play to see who can guess the common phrase the pictures represent. For example, present students with a picture of the word “lean” on top of “me.” Students should guess the phrase associated with this picture: “lean on me.”
Solving 20-questions puzzles necessarily requires context clue-interpretation skills. In this game, the teacher allows students to ask yes/no questions up to 20 times. If the students can guess the object the teacher is thinking of, they win. This game is especially malleable, as teachers can choose topics that she knows the third-grade students have familiarized themselves with in the course.