Primary schoolers around Australia have clocked up more than two million minutes of word building, in preparation for the July 27 start of national literacy competition LiteracyPlanet Word Mania 2015. LiteracyPlanet CEO, Adam McArthur pointed out that since registrations for the online competition opened in June, children have practiced the popular word building game for 2.2 million minutes and built more than 5.5 million words. McArthur went on to explain that Word Mania involves building as many words as possible from 15 letter tiles in three minutes. Word building involves a range of literacy skills including using basic language units, spelling, word recognition, vocabulary and word knowledge.
“The school holidays have proved popular for practicing Word Mania. With 1200 schools and thousands of home players signed up so far, more and more kids are improving their word building skills. Players are managing to build up to 115 valid words in a single game.” Mr. MacArthur commented
“My children love the fun of it, and the element of competition. Kids feel like they are playing a video game rather than using a learning tool.” Parent Ros Van Extel commented.
MacArthur explained the game is free for all children to play and the competition is open to children in Years 1 to 6. Players can practice now and the competition rounds start on July 27. Children can register to compete up until the last day of the rounds on August 16. A national final will take place in Sydney on September 3 during National Literacy and Numeracy Week 2015.
There is over $50,000 in prizes for the highest scoring children and their schools, and every game played contributes to the national total, shown on a real-time counter on the website.
One week until national literacy competition starts so here some WORD MANIA 2015 FACTS
2,220,777 minutes played
300,204 full games played
5,570,410 words built
1,200 schools
115 – The most words spelt in a game
Internationalism – The longest word spelt so far
432 – The most games played by the one student