How To... Build Vocabulary with Word Fun

Teaching Pre K-8, Mar 2005 by Lindroth, Linda

Palindromes - both with letters and numbers - are great brain teasers for your students

When you combine word games with critical thinking skills, words can become fun, thought-provoking and captivating. Here are some ways to play with words that I hope will engage your students in looking at language in a way that might expand their use of the written word.

Word Palindromes

What do the words madam, mom, pop, and eye all have in common? They're all palindromes. Palindromes are words that are the same when read forwards or backwards, either letter-by-letter or word-by-word. Some letter-by-letter examples are tot, level, toot, Bob and wow. A sampling of word-by-word phrases would be phrases such as "Was it a cat I saw?" or "Madam, I'm Adam."

There are a number of resources to help build a Palindrome word wall or chart. I created a three-column chart for three letter, four letter and five letter words. Click on the Bonus Curriculum box on www.TeachingK-8.com to view and download this Palindrome Word Chart to help students record their findings. Be sure to challenge your students to fill in each column with as many words as they can possibly find. My students really enjoy making it a competition, dividing into teams and working on the chart to earn points. For example, I grant three points for three letter words, five points for four letter words and 10 points each for five or more letters.

1 Visit the Discovery School website to get some three, four and five letter words to get your students started. Go to http://school.discovery.com/brainboosters/wordplay/palindromes.html

2 Enhance your word study with Palindrome History. This web resource talks about the history and provides a story about the King of Palindromes, Sydney Yendys (also a palindrome), to read to your class. Several poems that feature word-by-word palindromes are also showcased on http://www.brownielocks.com/palindromes.html

3 Print a palindrome quiz from the Enchanted Learning website about Palindromes. This excellent site has many examples of single-word palindromes and palindromic phrases. Be sure to check out http://www.enchantedlearning.com/english/palindromes/

4 Here's a fun activity for you and your students - how about creating a Palindrome Alphabet Book? The Palindrome Parade website is an extensive alphabetical listing of palindrome words and phrases by the dozen for each letter of the alphabet. http://www.thinks.com/words/palindromes.htm

Palindrome Numbers

Once you have your students building their vocabulary as they look for word palindromes, you might want to extend the skill to numbers. Palindromic numbers are numbers which read the same forward or back - 121, 858, etc. Since the 1990s, we have had two palindromic years: 1991 and 2002. This unusual occurrence will not happen again until 2112, so that makes it all the more unusual for our lifetime. Probably the most famous palindrome number today is 911. Can you figure it out? It's not a number palindrome until you make it a Roman numeral - IXXI - which will really get your students thinking!

Numbers that are not a palindrome to begin with can become one with just a few quick steps. We can decide that single digit numbers are all palindromes. Also, we can define a double digit, triple digit, etc. number as a palindrome.

196 Palindrome Quest. All but a few numbers can be made into number palindromes with a few short steps. Try this algorithm:

1. Pick a number.

2. Reverse the digits and add them together.

3. If the answer is not a palindrome, go back to step 2 and repeat.

Most numbers under 10,000 will make a palindrome with four steps or fewer. Students can try this algorithm for the digits 10-99. Just let them know that 89 and 98 will take 24 steps. You might want to leave these two numbers out, or challenge students to work on this at home. For more about this quest, visit http://www.jasondoucette.com/worldrecords.html

Palindrome Lessons

There are a number of resources for palindrome activities using words and numbers.

1 Palindrome Patterns: A third grade lesson from Mathematics TEKS Toolkit. Go to http://www.tenet.edu/teks/math/clarifying/clgrd3palind.html

2 Year of the Palindrome: Check out this website which uses 10 cartoon pictures to test your brain power on palindrome words and phrases - http://googolplex.cuna.org/15378/ajsmall/palindrome/start.html

3 About Palindromes: Articles and web resources on palindromes from About.com Go to http://puzzles.about.com/od/palindromes/

4 Palindrome Puzzles: A Top 30 list of palindromes. There's even a new twist with 2D squares - 2x2, 3x3, 4x4 squares where the word is the same no matter how you read the boxes. This is a real challenge for the end of your palindrome study. It's also a great jumping off point for other word plays included in the index. You can find all this and more at http://fun-with-words.com/palin_example.html

5 Palindrome Connection: This site features an extensive database of good palindrome links. Go to http://www.palidromes.org/