Collaborative post

Word searches can be highly motivating, fun activities for kids. They are also great for learning! While they are busy enjoying the hunt for words, children are also learning about letter patterns, recognizing words, and learning to focus and to look carefully. Word searches can be used for very young children who are learning to spell, as well as older children who are developing more writing advanced skills.

Benefits

One appeal of word searches is that they can be custom-made to suit your focus. As well, they can be as simple or complex as you wish. They also provide flexibility, depending on the amount of time children have to spend on them. A word search can be started now and easily set aside until there’s more time later. Word searches also have the benefit of requiring children to keep a word’s spelling in their head. They may be visualizing the word or repeating its letters over and over as they look for it. This helps reinforce spelling. 

Word Searches for Young Children

For children who are beginning to develop a bank of words they can write, word searches are one way to help them practice their skills. For early writers, having the words hidden horizontally, from left to right, is helpful. You can start with familiar words, like their name. You can even hide their name multiple times for them to find. That may be all their first-word search contains! As they begin learning a few sight words, you can try adding them to word searches as well. Again, hiding the same word multiple times may be enough for beginning readers and writers. 

Hold off on having words appear backward, vertically, or diagonally. As children begin to read and write, it’s important that they solidify the concept of looking left to right. Don’t throw in other directions until they are consistently looking left to right in all literacy activities. 

Word Families

Word searches can be helpful when you are introducing children to word families. These are words that share common endings, like “cat,” “hat,” and “bat,” or “hop,” “pop,” and “top.” When trying to find these words, children have to keep the common base or stem in mind (e.g., “at,” “op”), which helps them recall how it’s spelled and what it looks like.

For more experienced writers, word searches can be used to reinforce spelling structures like blends (e.g., “cl”), digraphs (e.g., “sh”), and vowel clusters (e.g., “oa”)   

Make Their Own

Children may enjoy creating word searches for each other. Hiding words can help them practice their spelling, then finding words in a partner’s word search provides additional practice. Children can also use word searches to help them learn words they have chosen to focus on. For example, they may find there are words they use in their writing that they’re always getting stuck on. Or, there may be vocabulary from other subjects, like math or science, that they want to learn to spell. 

Adding Creativity

Depending on your focus, you may wish to have children work on their word searches with paper and pencil, or you may wish to have them complete them using an online application. If they are using paper, you can add a little flair to the activity by having them highlight the words in different colors, circle the letters, shade the words, or stamp the letters. It may seem simple but going beyond a pencil can be really fun!