Four Literary Games Even Kids Enjoy

I have tutored too many students who feel uncomfortable writing in their own language. By the fourth grade, they have stopped wanting to write anything because everything they write receives a grade. The two year old who once begged for a crayon has become the nine year old who is tired of failing. When I tell them that words can be fun, they roll their eyes and begin working on the twenty-five sentences sent home for them to copy twice as homework.

Parents always ask me what they can do to help their kids care about English; I suggest making words and writing fun. Science has discovered that we tend to recall better what we've learned while laughing. Research has also pointed to a direct correlation between reading comprehension and writing ability. In other words, teach your children to love writing, and they will learn to love reading. Luckily, children always have something they want to say.

You can make writing and words fun for your kids, as well as yourself. Here are four simple games that can help you begin:

Story-Story Grow:

In this game, everyone starts with a blank piece of paper. Everyone writes a sentence on their page, and then passes it to another player. Meanwhile, a different player passes you their paper and you add a sentence to make their story grow. If there are only two of you, you pass the same story back and forth. Essentially, you keep passing stories and adding sentences until someone calls for final pass. At this point, your job is to complete the story passed to you. Once done, you can have fun reading the stories to each other. Sometimes they are silly; sometimes they are wonderful. This game works well in groups of two and in groups of twenty. It works wonderfully with fourth graders who have forgotten the fun of writing. You can play it with your kids; you can play it with your friends; you can play it with your e-mail writing buddies. If players don't know how to start the first sentence, you can always begin with a prompt. Something like, "The most amazing thing I ever saw was..." This game nourishes creativity, understanding, problem solving, and writing skills.

One Word Story:

In this game, everyone works on the same story. The first player writes a word. The next player adds a second word in order to make the sentence grow. Each player in turn adds a new word. However, no word can be repeated. Your goal is to see how long your story can become without repeating a word. If you are working with children, simply point out the repeat and ask them to try again. Come to think of it, do the same thing while playing with adults. This game promotes vocabulary development, team building, creativity, and fun.

The Rhyming Game:

In this game, everyone tries to have a realistic conversation while managing to rhyme the last word of his or her own sentence with the last word of the previous sentence. In other words, if some asks, "How was your day?" you could respond with, "I ran into Bill, he said hay." You are not allowed to respond unless you can rhyme the last word of your response to the last word spoken. If the rhyme dies out, then the last person to speak can say something else and trigger a new word to rhyme. You can play the Rhyming Game anywhere and at any time. Some of my most amusing games have happened while cooking dinner. This game develops listening, patience, rhyming, word play, vocabulary, and roll on the floor laughter.

The License Plate Game:

In this game, you save your sanity while in traffic. Players get points by spotting license plates with letters that can form words. You get more points if you can make more than one word. So 34CRN54 becomes one point for corn, a second point for Cornwall, and a third point for Cornwallis. Not to mention, crane, acorn, crown, croon, cairn; you get the idea. In this game, you can add any letters you want, but you must keep the license plate letters in order. The license plate game promotes creativity, bonding, imagination, vocabulary, and interesting drives home with your kids. Not to mention that the point keeper learns record keeping and math.

When we make learning fun, learning comes naturally. Kids are sponges, often soaking up facts unexpected and alarming. Learn to play word games with your kids, and they may learn to love words. I know that I owe my love of writing to my mother's love of words. Make a habit of playing these games with your kids, and they may learn to love words from you.

Romance Novels

Romantic stories are one of the best selling genres. They are mostly written and read by women. If a man reads romance novels, he's not likely to admit it. The first ones were written by celebrated 19th century authors, such as Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice) and Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre). Emily Bronte wrote the wonderfully Gothic Wuthering Heights. These novels were of course, considered to be literary classics whereas most modern offerings are not.

The modern romantic book, as published by Mills and Boon etc., is pretty formulaic. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl and boy gets girl again. There is nearly always a happy ending and there are no graphic descriptions of bedroom scenes. The protagonists tend to be middle or upper class. There are often doctor and nurse scenarios and men have chiseled jaws and muscular arms. Historical romance is also popular, with opportunities for a lot of genteel courtship and brave fiancées marching to war in their neatly pressed uniforms. It's easy to poke fun but these romance novels give pleasure to thousands of people. Fans want a bit of harmless escapism at the end of a busy day.

The English writer, Barbara Cartland was probably the most prolific of all the romance novels scribes. She famously dictated thousands of words a day, with her little dog on her lap. She only dressed in pink and prided herself on chaste heroines. We shall never see her kind again.

More recent novelists have tried to keep the genre alive but brought it into line with contemporary values. This has been dubbed chick lit and its leading light is the Bridget Jones books. She is a character for a modern generation, an independent career woman but one who freely admits to wanting a man in her life. There are shades of the Pride and Prejudice story in there, which brings romance novels full circle. It's probably what Jane Austen would be writing, were she alive today.

Fans don't seem to mind that they can guess what's coming. They find it comforting in an unsettled world. The setting and time period probably don't matter very much. It's the relationship between the man and woman (it's always a man and woman) that counts. Modern standards of behavior have changed significantly but there is still a demand for old-fashioned romance novels with clearly defined plots. Mr. Darcy is alive and well.