Scrabble Junior - Scrabble for Kids 5 to 8 Years Old

Scrabble Junior is a Scrabble variant designed for children from ages five to eight years old. The set contains both the Scrabble for kids game and a Classic Scrabble board.

Scrabble Junior is a great way to get your kids interested in Scrabble. SCRABBLE can be a little daunting for children, who might think the game needs a lot of arcane word knowledge. The people at Hasbro designed SCRABBLE Junior as a gateway into the world's greatest word game.

Scrabble Junior Recommended Ages

Scrabble Junior is designed for children ages 5 through 8. The whole idea of Scrabble Junior is to teach children about the formation of words. There are pre-formed words on the Scrabble Junior playing surface. Each kids in the game picks seven letters and then tries to match these letters with the words already on the board. Generally, the last child to fill out one of the words wins points.

There are 100 letter tiles in Scrabble Junior, just like in the Classic Scrabble game. So you're children will get a fairly good lesson in building words after playing one of these games.

Scrabble Junior Criticisms

One criticism of Scrabble Junior is the limited word selection. There are only a finite number of words on the playing surface, so you'll end up building the same words over and over. If you have a child that needs constant challenges, this might be limited. The good thing is that you can also play Classic Scrabble with the Scrabble Junior set.

On the opposite side of the Scrabble Junior board, you'll find the classic Scrabble game board. This means you'll be able to move your child into playing full Scrabble when the time is right. The letter tiles are the same for each game, so you'll have the pieces necessary to play a full game of Scrabble with this set.

Scrabble Junior Disney Edition

The Disney Version of Scrabble Junior has pictures of all the favorite Disney cartoon characters. Otherwise, Scrabble Junior Disney version plays the same as Classic Scrabble Junior. One word of warning is that some people complain that the cartoon pictures obscure some of the letters on the board, making it more difficult to match the letter tiles with the boardgame letters.

Scrabble Junior Review

The game is great to help children with letter recognition. It's a fun way to supplement the kid's spelling lessons. There are a few drawbacks and improvements could be made, but the game allows for a transition into classic Scrabble, which is the point.

Try playing around with the junior scrabble version of the game. When your child looks to have mastered that edition or appears bored with the same old words, flip the board over and play a game of Classic Scrabble with them.

Have your children stick to easier words and don't intimidate the kids by placing a bunch of words way over their heads. If you are completely bored with a non-competitive game, then handicap the game by giving your child a certain number of points to start the game. You might find the right handicap becomes a challenge for both of you.

Finally, some of the materials in Scrabble Junior are made of cardboard. These are easy to tear up or destroy in the washing machine, which is another complaint I hear from parents sometimes. Remember that Scrabble Junior costs about one-third of the price of a Classic SCRABBLE set, so the cheaper materials are meant to make the game more affordable for parents.

All in all, this is a noble enough effort. Sure, the game is a commercial product, so Hasbro marketed Scrabble Junior to make a profit. But for the number of kids who enjoy playing Scrabble Junior and might even learn a little from it, there are worse things in the world.