Alphabet Twenty Questions
Each player (therapist and student) has a sheet of paper with the alphabet printed on it in one horizontal line. I print the line in landscape mode using a 28 point Century Schoolbook font.
One player is designated as the "chooser," the other is the "questioner." In the first game, and maybe the first few games depending on the student, the student should be the chooser. The chooser's paper is creased parallel to the alphabet so that a blank portion of the the top of the page will stand up and hide the chooser's alphabet from the questioner. The players must be seated so they are facing each other across a table.
The chooser chooses one letter of his hidden alphabet and circles it.
The questioner asks yes-or-no questions until she is able to identify the letter:
"Is the secret letter after m?"
"Is the secret letter before k?"
"Is the secret letter between d and h?"
And eventually: "Is the secret letter g?"
As the questioner (who is the therapist in the early games) asks her questions, she marks her alphabet to show the letters that are excluded by each answer. She also rehearses her strategy aloud before asking questions: "Let's see. I know it's after g and before p. I wonder which one it's closer to? K is about halfway between -- I'll ask if it's after k." And so on.
This is important: When the therapist, as questioner, asks a question, she illustrates it on her alphabet sheet, which is in the chooser's view. "Is the letter after m?" (Therapist draws a vertical line between m and n.) "If it is after m, it must be one of these letters, starting with n." (Therapist sweeps her pencil across the second half of the alphabet.) "If it's not after m, then it must be m or one of the letters before m." (Therapist indicates first half of the alphabet.)
After the student, as chooser, has answered the question, the therapist crosses out the excluded portion of the alphabet, explaining her action as she does so: "Aha. Since it is after m, I can cross out all of the letters from a through m. Now I know it's one of these letters." (Therapist points to the last half of the alphabet.)
Needless to say, the therapist's alphabet sheet is right-side-up for the student.
The first time the game is played, it is likely that the student will make mistakes in his answers, but will catch and correct them when the therapist verbalizes her conclusions from the answers. Of course, the therapist accepts the student's corrections courteously; either making no comment or praising the student for his alertness in catching the error.
Make sure there is no ambiguity about endpoints. I specify the endpoint convention every time I ask a question, never assuming that the student remembers it. The verbiage I use for before and after questions is illustrated above. For "between" questions, I illustrate by drawing a line under the segment in question as I ask the question, and I make it clear that the endpoints are not included in the set.
With some students, I can imagine that it might be necessary to teach them a procedure for determining the answers to the questions. For example, a student might, on his hidden alphabet, draw the vertical dividing line as the therapist draws it on her visible alphabet. Then he might sweep his pencil across the excluded or included segments of his alphabet as the therapist does the same thing on her alphabet, and note which segment his circled secret letter is in. I have not had a student for whom that kind of structure was necessary, though.
You can use this game with young students (I have used it with a six-year-old) who do not know the alphabet yet. I like it for that purpose because it makes the student spend five minutes or so looking closely at different segments of an alphabet that is all within his view. (The rainbow or row of alphabet chips is useful, but the student cannot so easily see all of it at once.)
I think you could even use this game with a student who did not yet know the letter names, since you can arrange to point at every letter you name during the course of the game.
As well as helping the student learn alphabet sequence and "before,"
"after," and "between" relationships, the game provides practice in
letter recognition. You can make the alphabet sheets using
capitals, lower case, or even cursive letters.
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Everything on this web site is the personal opinion of S. W. Davison. Any of it might be incorrect or out-of-date.