Writing isn’t a skill that comes naturally to everyone; many people struggle with understanding sentence structure, the correct spelling of words, and grammar rules. Word games such as scrabble, four-pics-one-word, and Pictionary are entertaining, but they are great tools for learning and improving your speaking and writing skills. The plethora of online and offline word games makes it easier for writers to develop specific skills and qualities to improve their writing. In this article, you’ll learn five crucial ways to improve your writing skills by playing word games.
Improve Your Spelling
Word games such as scrabble are spelling-intensive and help players develop their spelling skills. Most people find it easy to spell common words that they use often but may find it challenging to spell others. You can quickly and significantly improve your spelling by regularly playing word games that require spelling and creating words.
Word games become more challenging as the level increases, and you might find it difficult to concentrate on learning. When the fun is taken from word games, learning may become impaired. For example, if you play scrabble, one way to step around this is to use a scrabble solver or scrabble word finder tool to find new words. Why not check scrabble-solver.com? An overall improvement in spelling will improve your writing skills.
Improve Your Cognitive Skills
Writing requires cognitive abilities such as information processing speed, working memory, pattern recognition, and sustained attention. Writing, especially fiction writing, draws a lot from a person’s ability to imagine and create mental images. Word games are suitable for developing and improving cognitive skills. As you play, you’ll find that you can quickly and effortlessly recognise words, remember word patterns, and rearrange words. When you begin to write, you’ll find it easier to remember plot scenes, mentally piece information, consider variables, and deploy cognitive skills to make your work enjoyable.
You should try and unscramble letters as part of word games. According to this report, unscrambling letters may improve our cognitive ability. If you want to improve your writing, you could try word games and measure your progress.
Improve Your Thinking
Word games encourage deep and critical thinking: what’s your next move? How do you get words with maximum scores? How do you maximise your chances? Most word games, especially online versions, are timed, and players have to think quickly to beat the timer. Playing word games with timed activities will help develop your critical thinking. Word games force you to make quick decisions, and you get to learn from your mistakes.
Writing is an art that requires thinking. It takes a thoughtful person to carefully arrange and articulate their thoughts into an enjoyable piece of writing. That is one difference between carefully written pieces and those mumbo-jumbo works that one sometimes comes across on the internet. Remember, word games are entertaining and educational; utilise every chance to play and stretch your imagination.
Improve Your Vocabulary and Grammar
There are 358,800 possible permutations for the English alphabet. Admittedly, many of those combinations are not words or are simply nonsensical. Yet, one cannot deny the seemingly endless words that can be formed by merely substituting one letter for another or combining letters in different ways. One reason why that is important is that we have different words for the same meaning. For example, stubborn, obdurate, obstinate and wilful may all mean the same in the proper context.
Writers often face having overused or common words in their works. For example, the word important is often overused and may slightly irritate readers. A writer could simply replace the word with others such as vital, necessary, crucial, etc. But many of these replacement words may not be common or everyday words readily available to a writer’s vocabulary.
Playing word games exposes you to thousands of new words that you subconsciously internalise over the years. You get to add new words to your vocabulary, and your brain stores them for future use. When you write, you’ll be able to combine words to make other words. You may not have to stress so much to replace words.
Playing word games may also improve one’s grammar. There are word games that help players to practice language structure through constructing sentences. Such games make it easier for players to learn basic grammar while having fun.
Improves Creativity
Creativity is a necessary skill to have when writing fiction. A writer that is not creative will find it challenging to write captivating and engaging content. Again, word games can significantly improve one’s creative skills. You are forced to find new words with only one later provided, or you have to find synonyms.
Within a short time, you’ll find that your creativity improves, and you can find words faster. As your vocabulary improves, you’ll also be able to describe fictional scenes better using the right words.
