I hated spelling when I was in grade school. I hated it. And my disdain for spelling cost me big points when it came to high school, college and even law school. Today's kids have it a bit easier - they have spell checkers to help them through the upper grades, but there is still a rite of passage that forces students to learn to spell in elementary school. Can anything make the drudgery of learning the English language less of a chore?
Enter Super Scribblenauts, the adventure game that rewards kids with a good imagination and a thesaurus like vocabulary. Oh, I wish there had been a game that rewarded literacy when I was in 6th grade. How different things might have turned out!
Each level of the game requires you to write words that the program makes "appear" in picture form on the screen. Those objects can then be used to solve the level's puzzle. Need to fly, write the word "wings" and then equip your character with them. The program's vocabulary is impressive, even more so because it can "read" and "understand" adjectives. So, if you need really big wing, that is exactly what you'd write.
The game has lots of replay value. In fact, you get extra points if you solve a level with differently multiple times.
Though not a traditional "learning" game, Super Scribblenauts does have lots of stealth learning features. It is one of those programs that can make you feel better about your kid playing video games. Recommended.
