Children grow their word bank by pronouncing and spelling new words every single day. But what if you can make the learning process fun, engaging, and 10 times better than the normal routine. Plus, it is fun to make learning words a hobby for your children. How?!
The answer is Word games. Word games provide a unique and fun way to help kids improve and expand their minds by playing with new words every single day. They get more comfortable pronouncing words and they become more confident in themselves.
If you are a parent looking for such educational and fun word board games, then you are at the right place. Here we have compiled a list of the 8 Best word board games to save you the hassle of time and improve the life of your child.
Benefits of word board games for kids
Numerous studies have been conducted on the health benefits of word games for kids and teens of all ages. Here is a list of some of the benefits your child will gain from playing word games.
- They increase your kid’s language skills
- Better memory and mental cognition
- Better focus and concentration
- Increase in confidence
- Helps in socializing with others
Bananagrams
Best for: Ages 4+
Number of players: 1-8
This is one of the most perfect word board games to make your kids smarter. They learn new words using leather tiles. Kids grow their vocabulary much faster than most word games. The speed required to pick up the pace will improve your child’s coordination and focus. Bananagrams provide simple letter tiles that make it easier for the children.
It is like a crossword puzzle. Words are arranged to intersect horizontally and vertically but not diagonally. Words are sorted in groups making it easy to learn more words quickly and easily.
Click to learn how to play Bananagrams board game.
Benefits of Bananagrams for kids
Bananagrams will help your children achieve the following.
- Get better at recognizing letters and words
- Language development
- Get better at categorizing words and ideas
- Boost in confidence levels
Scrabble
Best for: Ages 7+
If you are looking for a word board game that will encourage your child to learn more words and also remember them, Scrabble is the game for you.
With scrabble, children learn to unscramble words, learn prefixes of words, and therefore add more words to their word bank.
Use the scrabble dictionary to help your kids learn more words, get better at scrabble, and improve their literacy skills.
Benefits of Scrabble for kids
Here is a list of advantages your child will gain from playing scrabble consistently.
- Increase in cognition
- Sharp thinking skills
- Improvement in spelling and pronouncing skills
- Build a broader vocabulary
- Help them communicate more effectively
Word on the street
Best for: Ages 12+
Number of Players: 2-6
Word on the street board games is very simple and fun to play with others. Your kids will get to compete with their peers and learn to come up with words, focusing on specific words gives your child incredible mental insights and revelations.
Your kid’s vocabulary will improve greatly and at a faster pace because of the time component to come up with words given to them by the opposing team. Also, your kids will learn words by category. By category, I mean words belonging to a specific class. For example, if you are given a category card that says “a form of entertainment”, you are required to come up with a word that fits that particular idea.
Benefits of Word on the Street for kids
List of benefits children will gain from playing Word on the street.
- Improvement in vocabulary skills
- Better social skills
- Bigger and broader vocabulary
Letter Jam
Best for: Ages 10+
Number of Players: 2-6
This beautiful game is in my opinion is a combination of boggle, scrabble, and a little bit of deductive reasoning which is very important for children to develop. It forces you to come up with words using single letters of other players.
Letter Jam is a cooperative game, a game played among friends and family, assisting each other to figure out words, and improving each other in the process. Your kids will love it, with their word bank expanding, and their grades improving in the process.
Boggle
Best for: Ages 8+
Number of players:1-8
Boggle belongs to the same domain as scrabble, but without using a gameboard. Using randomly flipped lettered dies, you connect letters to form words. It basically challenges kids to learn more three to five-letter words. It also helps kids to spot unique words from a pile of jammed-up letters AKA Pattern recognition.
Click to learn how to play Boggle board game.
Benefits of Boggle board game for kids
Boggle is an essential game for children because of these reasons
- Children learn new words and are able to pronounce them easily.
- Just like scrabble, it improves their overall cognitive function.
Taboo
Best for Ages4+
Number of Players: 4-6
This is a competitive game with the objective of scoring more points than the other players. In the game, you, the clue giver, describe a word or phrase without using a set of words known as Taboo.
The more your kid’s play, the more words they learn and the more focus and concentration they develop as a result.
Benefits of Taboo board game for kids
Taboo is good for kids for the following reasons
- It helps children come up with better ways of learning.
- It helps children to think more broadly and logically.
- Better and quick cognitive skills.
Click to learn how to play the Taboo board game.
Tapple
Best for: Age 8+
Number of players: 2-10
Tapple is not only educational for kids but fun and exciting. A great game to play with family and friends and provide a healthy environment for your kids to thrive intellectually. It is simple to learn and works with categories, categories based on level of difficulty, easy category—white and blue, difficult category— yellow and red. So, you can switch to any category based on the kid’s ability and grow from there.
This game is extremely beneficial for kids’ mental development. Giving them categories to think of words that might belong to that category will increase their mind exponentially. It will teach them to think more carefully about words. They will also learn to spell words better and quicker.
Codenames
Best for: Ages 14+
Number of Players: 2-8
Codenames is a little bit more advanced than most word games. It requires careful thinking and strategy. For kids, it provides an opportunity to boost their current mental strength and learn advanced thinking skills. To keep the kids glued to this game, it is advisable to play it with them.
Codenames is a clue-based game and will help kids learn how to associate words with certain names, learn through guessing, figuring out their mistakes, and improve through every gameplay. It can also be played cooperatively.
This game is fun and engaging! It is not about winning or losing but developing the skill of figuring things out using words.
Click to learn how to play Codenames board game.
Over To You
Word games are very powerful tools to help your child grow their vocabulary and other mental skills. To ensure your child gets the maximum benefit from the process, make it fun and also participate in the games.
Other Best Word-based board games you might be interested in?
- Decrypto
- Werewords
- Paperback
- Just One
- Wordigo
- 21 Letters
- 25 Words or Less
- Take a letter
- Dabble
- Typo
- Pass the Pen
- Quiddler
- Qwirkle
- Big Boggle
- Crazy Letters
- Pairs in pears
- Upwords
- Wordical
- WordSpiel Card Game
- Hasbro Scrabble
- Scattergories
- A little wordy