This 57-page book is an excellent resource for injecting a bit of fun and challenge into the class. Reproduction rights are granted for single-classroom use, so it could be used for a group, but it would also work well for a tutor with individual students. The exercises are designed so that students will find them amusing, but the underlying goal is to produce fluent, flexible problem-solvers.

There are seven different sections, with mostly word puzzles, such as “Word Morphs” and “Secret Word Puzzles,” but also number puzzles, such as “Telephone Code Puzzles”. Each section has a comprehensive and well-designed “How-To” sheet which provides examples and a sample puzzle. I have found these useful for challenging students with reading instructions.

Students seem to enjoy discovering how much they improve as they progress through the puzzle section, so that they go from finding the first puzzle “difficult”, to feeling that the last one is “easy”. For many, that is part of the enjoyment of the puzzles; they learn proficiency and discover that their creative/critical thinking skills can be improved.

I like to use these puzzles for more than the enjoyment factor. The exercises are a handy way to introduce “having fun” with words, as the concept of playing with words is often not familiar to many students. In addition, because of the relatively easy level of these puzzles, they also inject word awareness into a lesson in a manner which promotes confidence in readers and writers.