Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion word searches, value?

So, my question to you is whether this topic has been studied. And where word searches are thought to fit into learning. I imagine they help in word recognition, spelling, vocabulary, etc—all things that DS learns in a different way. I googled but it wasn’t much use.

I think these are busywork, especially at 13. (He still has to do them at 13??) The only real benefit I could see is spelling and basic word recognition, but that seems like an early elementary kind of skill.

Is this teacher honestly trying to say that word searches are teaching the students something?! LoL. I'd also like to propose that tic-tac-toe helps children learn to draw then! And hide and seek helps teach problem solving skills!

Word searches are just busy work so the teacher can do something else other than actually grade work.

We had a word search phase...

When DD was in grade 2, her teacher commented many times on her perfectionism and how she'd sit frozen at her desk, trying to start her work, while the other kids were halfway done their assignments. The teacher suggested I work with her at home, trying to get her to speed up, and worry less about making mistakes.

This happened during the 2010 games in our city, so I created an "Olympic medal" rewards chart for word searches. She had five minutes, and would earn a medal based on the number of words she found. She LOVED it (ended up with mostly gold )

It didn't help her in school though. I had chosen word searches because I wanted something simple to start off with, and she was VERY resistant to anything relating to written output. (She has no problems with written output, other than perfectionism).

Her teacher said that the word searches were too easy, and because they didn't involve actual writing, they didn't address the problem of DD's written output perfectionism. She suggested I try something that involved "actual work."

So here she was, only 3 months after turning 7, with her teacher thinking that word searches were too beneath her ability to benefit her. MON, I'd call that a vote of endorsement for your DS's scorn for the activity

This kind of assignment is a huge pet peeve of mine. Both my 15 year old HS student and my 9 year old have been assigned them, and I consider it busy work and a time waste. Homework should be meaningful, valuable and reinforcing to a daily lesson. I fail to see how a word search could be any of those things.

I love words. I love writing, and the nuance of spelling and how combinations of letters blend to create a specific sound depending on what other letters come before and after. I am also weird and know that this is not how most people see words.

Word searches help develop letter combination recognition. The word you're looking for is ambience, so you start scanning the word search for A's, simultaneous scanning the letters surrounding the A to find the ones with an M next to that A. Then you scan those for ones with the AMB combination. By building on each letter, it helps reinforce the way the word actually builds on letters from beginning to end and can be very helpful in picturing the word in your head come spelling test at the end of the week.

At least, that's how it works for some. For others, it is a totally inane, ridiculously boring assignment that is finished with the least amount of effort and mostly by cheating off what your friends around you have already found. It does nothing to increase test scores.

And for those with dyslexia and learning disabilities, it is just a practice in torture, having the ability to create frustration on a multitude of levels in a single assignment. It really has to be one of the absolute worst assignments for someone with dyslexia.

So, perhaps writing your Congressman to request he draft a bill to completely ban word searches might be unreasonable, as those few weird children like me would be deprived of the discovery that they love letters and words the way some people love nice cars. But accepting it as a reasonable assignment for a child with dyslexia would be out of the question for me. The year my son had a teacher who decided she was going to "fix" my son and required word searches, that was the year I decided earning zeros in third grade was a completely reasonable thing to do.

I'm not sure what their value is but I know my dd who is dyslexic, dyspraxic, and who struggles with vision tasks has a very hard time with them.

Because they are a definite weakness for her I feel that it could be to her benefit to do ones that are appropriately challenging. So I pick ones that aren't too easy but not too difficult and let her decide when she is done.

I wanted to add that my highly gifted 7yo LOVES word searches though.

I'm like ABQmom, (word searches were one of my VERY favorite pastimes as a child, second only perhaps to MAZES)...


but my DD regards them as drivel. She hasn't been given a word search in any kind of academic/learning setting since... er...






well. I think about fourth grade?

This high school English teacher is both appalled and confused by the use of word searches as anything other than time fillers on the day before winter break. Add to that that they are graded for some kids, and I feel an aneurism coming on...