Customer Reviews

Scrabble: Junior Edition

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I played this game with three kids (5, 6, and 7 )for a week and we all loved it. Some games do not translate well into junior version, but this one is well done. The board has two sides. One side, the easier side, has pre-printed words. Players try to put the letters they have picked onto the board following some very simple and straight-forward rules. There are strategies invovled (such as trying to be the one to put the last letter into a word--one gets a point for completing a word). This part is best for kids 5 to 7 or 8.

The other side of the board is similar to the regular Scrabble board (without the doubling and tripling parts). One can form words without the constraint of pre-printed words. A kid who reads and writes well (7 or 8 year olds, for example), can do well with it.

I like this game because it gives kids a taste of the Scrabble game without making them work unnecessarily too long and too hard at it. (I tried using the standard board with kids. It worked for only a little while.)

All in all, a good game to have, even with the cardboard lettering.

This was a gift for my daughter's 5th birthday, and, though it's age-appropriate, we've found that the "Junior" side of the board to be terribly limiting.

There are only about ten words that kids can work to spell, and these are a predictably condescending mix of "easy words" like WATER and GOAT, along with "fun words" like ARCADE, CANDY and TELEVISION. If you play this game a lot, you're stuck spelling the same words over and over, so there's little learning value or reinforcement of new vocabulary.

The other side of the board can be used for a more normal Scrabble experience, but I find my 5-year-old, though she's reading, is a little young for that. My only other complaint is that all the tiles and "points" chips this game uses are thick cardboard, which means that if they sneak into the washing machine, they're toast (I know this from tragic personal experience).

All in all, this game isn't an outright loss, but I was expecting better from a big games company.

Recommended Ages: 4 to 6 years old ONLY (my 6-year old, an avid reader, is bored to tears with this game)

Playability on Shabbat: YES!!! (no batteries, electronics or writing)

I was excited at the prospect of a scrabble game I could play with the little children I babysit for. Unfortunately, this game relied neither on the luck that evens the playing field nor a skill a young child could pick up quickly enough to start winning enough. So unless I play dumb, I wind up winning each time. Also, I found the layout of the game to be especially poor for two reasons. First, as the featured reviewer noted, the cartoony pictures obscure the first letters of words. Second, the choice of words is so poor, it slows down the spelling process, especially at the beginning, when the variety of options is very limited. It seems the creators of the game just played a few rounds of Scrabble (TM) and said "Hey, this one looks good for kids" and didn't do any playtesting. So in conclusion, rather than looking at an educational game designed for children, what we have is a recognizable brand name that has been adapted to take advantage of a heretofore unregocnized market share. In other words, just trying to make a quick few bucks.

For the 4-6 year old still learning letters and basic spelling, this game is OK. For the older child, it gets boring fast. I try to get the older child (7) to work at strategy for playing pieces, to set himself up to finish a word & to prevent someone else from getting a word. The easy side of the board is very decorated, & it's hard to see some of the letters, so it takes careful attention to know where letters can be put. Also, there are only enough letters provided with the game to play the easy side, no extras, so if you lose any, you can't play the game. And it means that when there are no more letters in the pile, you can figure out at that point who is going to win, without finishing, because all the letters have a spot on the board. It also limits your options for the advanced side -- for example, there's only 1 'q' tile. I raided a regular scrabble game for pieces, & found those pieces easier for the kids to handle, too. Using easy, finished, crossword puzzles to map out a game on the advanced side gives the kids some easy games other than the one on the easy side of the board -- but it does require additional tiles & a good bit of work on my part!

Scrabble Jr. uses cheap materials for a not-all-that-cheap price. It simplifies the scoring, but that removes the reward for using the harder letters... and if you really want to do a 1-point-per-letter scoring system with no bonus spaces on the board, it would be easy enough to implement that with a regular set. The board is smaller, so it actually makes the game harder as you go along, because you run out of space at the edges to make the words you'd like to. The basic skill of constructing words isn't any easier with this game than with an adult set, and I think the simplified scoring takes a lot of the fun out of the game. I'm getting a Scrabble Deluxe set to use with my 6 and 9 year old kids - they'll need some help, but no more so than with Scrabble Jr. and it will be a more satisfying and more durable game.

Another great alternative is UpWords. This is a MUCH better pre-Scrabble game than Scrabble Jr. It rewards cleverness over knowledge of obscure words, and therefore helps to level the playing field among players of varying-sized vocabularies. Upwords

We just bought this for our learning to read 5 year old son.
We are very pleased with the concept of this game.
We choose this over the Disney version JUST to haelp identifiy real words over the names of Disney characters.
I am a HUGE Scrabble fan and seemed apprehensive as we opened the game, comparing it too much to what I am use to playing with another adult.
The rules were VERY well thought out for a Jr version. WE have only played the easy side. I love games that will challenge my child, And so does he. I will gladly play a game over and over with him that challenges him & makes him think, OVer a sugary sweet way too easy for them to win game. I did "help" my son win :) just to help him "see" the rules in action.
THINGS I was not overly pleased with are really a minor annoyance when compared to the educational value of the game.
I do not like the cardboard tiles. :( I wish game makers would STOP making them in general!!
It would have been nice to have a tile bag. otherwise you are just asking to loose letters. ALL of which are needed to play the easy side. While not needed for the young version, I do wish they also incuded tile holders. Just helps active youngsters keep track of letters :).

My son outgrew this game before 1st grade because to my delight, he is a fantastic speller and reader beyond his grade level. Actually I believe with some forethought on my part, I could have not bothered to buy this version.

The traditional scrabble is also more durable and the letters don't get bent up as these cardboard ones in the Junior version do.

My advice...jump right to the traditional scrabble. Fill in some of the squares on that board with words so it's the same premise as this Junior version. That way the game is also different every time for the child. You won't waste your money on a scrabble set that you'll use for a short time that isn't nearly as durable.

He's in 1st grade now and he got the traditional Scrabble and plays it well enough to hold his own comfortably while playing others. We don't focus so much on score, just on him coming up with the words in play.

This is a fun, educational game. My twin four year old boys love it and ask to play it often. We play the easy side first so they can put the letter tiles(cardboard but pretty sturdy) on the printed words. I was amazed at how good their letter recognition was already. They get little triangle points for each word they finish. That's the part they like! Then, we practice on the hard side making simple words their names, etc. To do more educational things with it just use your imagination. We made up simple index cards of 3 and 4 letter words to use the letter tiles. I think buying the children's version is definitely worth it. I almost bought the adult version after reading some of the reviews instead of this children's one and I think that we would have missed out on so much fun! The letter tiles are much bigger than the original Scrabble and even though they are cardboard my twin boys haven't even bent them. Also, the "hard" basic side with no printed words has just blank yellow squares which are less confusing to young children than the adult version. Plus different words are printed with pictures around the edge to help them out when they tackle the hard side. I would buy this game over Boggle Jr. because it is much more versatile a game.

I bought this for our friend's daughter for Christmas. The game is fun to play but I don't understand why they made this game with cardboard letter tiles instead of regular Scrabble tiles.

If your child doesn't have an exstinsive vocabulary the side t hat mirrors adult Scrabble can be quite frustrating. The side that mirrors a crossword puzzle can be very repetitive for the older child. This game is best for someone just learning to read.