Fun Vocabulary Games to Improve Literacy

On December 19th, Unique Toy and Game of Wildwood, MO invited the owner/game developers of Mindfull Games, Around the Table Games and Jane’s Games to demonstrate their products to store patrons. The store was packed to capacity with holiday shoppers and even some members of the press. Jane Matthews (creator of Instructures), Beth Daniels (creator of Family Talk and other conversation games), and Kristin Edmonds (creator of Verbal Volley) spoke to the visitors about what inspired the teacher, occupational therapist and speech pathologist  to create socially interactive games that help expressive language.  Many parents, grandparents and children played the new games. The weather was brisk and so were the sales. Thank you to Unique Toy and Game for introducing us to your holiday shoppers.

At the National Association for Gifted Children Convention in Saint Louis, Mindfull Games hosted an exhibitor session on socially interactive wordplay for unlimited vocabulary. Attendees filled our conference room to learn how to play Verbal Volley and to receive free copies of our Verbal Volley Showdown vocabulary tournament guidelines.  Participants shared some laughs while learning during our mock classroom team competition. Afterwards there was a run on our salesbooth, which was located outside the conference room door. For the first time, convention attendees were able to sign up to receive via email vocabulary research updates and  lesson plans to use with Verbal Volley. Thank you to all who participated in our exhibitor session.  We enjoyed meeting you and hearing your positive feedback. We hope you are enjoying the games you took back to your schools and homes.

We had a good time at the Big Read in Clayton, MO last weekend. The weather was unseasonably cold, but a sizable crowd showed up to hear some  great writers, such as Greg Mortenson, the author of best-seller Three Cups of Tea. At the Bradburn’s Parent Teacher Store tent, we gave Verbal Volley game demonstrations to a steady stream of book lovers, who came to Mr. Mortenson’s presentation right across the sidewalk.  It was fun to meet everyone who tried our game. We had bilingual people playing Verbal Volley in Spanish and English simultaneously, and even in English and Persian simultaneously. Thank you to all of the reading specialists, classroom teachers, English teachers, foreign language teachers, ESL teachers, parents and word game enthusiasts who gave us your feedback on our vocabulary game and/or purchased it from Bradburn’s.  We would also like to thank Bradburn’s for inviting us to present at their booth during the literacy festival.

We hope there is a great turnout for the Big Read literacy festival this Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009 in downtown Clayton.  Cultural Festivals has organized a great event with activities and presentations for all ages. Come see us at the Bradburn’s Parent Teacher Store booth Saturday at 10:30 am. Kristin Edmonds will be at the Bradburn’s booth to give a presentation on using socially interactive wordplay to teach vocabulary for literacy. We will demonstrate Verbal Volley for those who are interested, and Bradburn’s will have the game for sale.

Will Hack, 2009 Verbal Volley Showdown Scholarship Tournament Champion, has been named a National Merit Scholarship Finalist.  This news comes as no surprise to anyone who witnessed his performance at the March 1st Verbal Volley Showdown vocabulary tournament at Maryville University. He clearly demonstrated mastery of high frequency SAT and ACT vocabulary, as well as a knack for word play.  We are glad for his continued academic success. Congratulations Will!

Mindfull Games will have a booth at the ASHA Schools Conference in Kansas City, MO July 17-19 2009. Speech pathologists should visit us for information about using Verbal Volley as an evidence-based individual therapy activity, or as a fun classroom teaching tool for literacy, vocabulary and word finding. See how you can fit social word play with high frequency and concept words into your RTI protocols. NSSLHA members who want to prepare for the GRE can challenge each other to play Other Wordly, a.k.a. The Verbal Volley for College Prep. See you in Kansas City!

On Sunday, March 1st 2009, 21 high school students from across the St. Louis region raced to name synonyms and antonyms to win college funds in the first Verbal Volley Showdown scholarship tournament. The students competed one-on-one while playing the SAT/ACT prep version of Verbal Volley. Three single elimination rounds narrowed the field to three finalists. The finalists played a round robin tournament on the stage of the Maryville University Auditorium, while four judges moderated play and awarded points. Mindfull Games awarded scholarship funds of $1000, $700 and $500 to the top finishers. Maxine Clark of Build-A-Bear Workshop donated student bears and gift certificates to the six semi-finalists.  The scholarship winners were: Champion- Will Hack, senior at Parkway Central High School, Second Place-Kelly Lamarche, sophomore at Lafayette High School, and Third Place-Antonio Sanchez, senior at Maplewood-Richmond Heights High School. Each student will be able to apply the funds to the college or university of his or her choice. Mindfull Games and Maryville University sponsored the tournament. “I loved the tournament,” said Champion Will Hack. “Words are my strong suit…I will be attending Michigan State in the fall to study political science. Kelly and Antonio were amazing. In another world, I would have lost to both of them.”

Kelly Lamarche, the youngest finalist, plans to study animal sciences or pre-veterinary studies.  Kelly said the tournament was “a lot of fun!  Preparing for this tournament was the first time I have done any practice for the ACT and SAT at home.  My vocabulary has increased tremendously, and I find that I understand the texts much more, not only for my English class, but also for my social studies and science classes.”

1. The Brain Freeze card scoring will change with the shortened tournament play period. At the end of a preliminary match, the possession of the Brain Freeze card will cost a player two points.

2. We suggest that the player who does not hold the Brain Freeze card at the beginning of the second Brain Freeze round allow the holder of the Brain Freeze to be first to try to name a word to get rid of it. This will prevent a player from wasting a word that could be used later in the Brain Freeze round.

3. Hyphenated words and words with separable parts that appear together as one entry in a dictionary or thesaurus are acceptable. Examples would be “run-on” and “pick up.”

1. There will be no challenge feature in the tournament play. The judge will either award a card or not.

2. If a judge disagrees with a player’s word choice, that player may use the word in context and the target word in the same context once. The judge will then make a final ruling. An example: In the synonym round, the target word is “save.” A student names “except” as a synonym. The judge disagrees. The player says, “I ate all of the cookies except one.  I ate all of the cookies save one.” The judge sees that the usage is correct and awards the card to the player.

3. Each preliminary round will end after 30 minutes of playing time or after the completion of the four basic rounds of the game (synonym, synonym Brain Freeze, antonym, antonym Brain Freeze), or when the card stack is used up, whichever comes first.

4. If neither player wants to offer an antonym or synonym for a target word, the word is set aside and not looked up.

5. The judge will allow a player to hold the Brain Freeze card for up to 20 seconds while attempting to recall a synonym or antonym.

6. For all matches, the tiebreaker will be a sudden death Brain Freeze round with a randomly chosen word from the deck.  A coin toss by the judge will decide whether antonyms or synonyms will be used.

7. The three finalists will play a round robin format. Each final match will consist of only two rounds and will use either synonyms or antonyms. The judge will toss a coin to decide which one.

Students will need to bring enough food to sustain them throughout the tournament on Sunday. It is spring break at Maryville University, and the Campus Food Service and Kaldi’s are closed. Mindfull Corporation will provide some refreshments in the registration area, but there are no meals available on campus March 1st.