ThinkFun's What's Gnu, a three-letter-word spelling game for kids ages 5-8, is way better than you are thinking. It combines a great tile dispenser with the challenge of generating possible three-letter words by claiming letters that are passing through the game in rapid succession to add to word cards that have one letter already fixed in the first, second, or third position. The game is designed for up to six players, meaning access to letters can be pretty competitive, but there are a lot to go around.

Games like this help kids make sense of spelling in an opportunistic and creative way that is a nice reversal of the word identification most reading practice entails. They also foster a sense of overall success at reading as everyone ends up with something to show for their efforts, even if they aren't the winner. Creative parents can design any number of handicaps to allow older and younger readers to play together - older selects letters only after the younger has had their pick, or giving an older child several extra cards to fill to meet her quota.

Here's a demo of how the device at the center of this game works. In this case it's used for a far less successful game, Zingo, a Bingo spin-off that can only really justify its existence by the presence of the gadget. In the case of What's Gnu, though, it uses it in a constructive way that makes the gadget feel central to the game's design.


What's Gnu? and Zingo retail for $20 and are on sale now for $12-15 on Amazon.com. In fact, the whole range of ThinkFun kids' games appear to be on sale for 25-30% off.