Monday, January 14, 2002
By Elaine Thompson
Telegram & Gazette Staff
HUDSON-- Max Geist wasn't interested in the
meaning of “Ka.” It's the existence of “Ka” that
counts.
Max, a fifth-grader
at St. Michael's School, was among the pupils and parents who
competed in the public library's first Scrabble contest
Saturday.
The competition was
led by Ben Loiterstein, a national Scrabble champion, and Mr.
Loiterstein relied on “Ka” in a game he played against Max's
team.
Max's team challenged
the word, but to no avail. According to Webster's New World
College Dictionary, ``Ka” in ancient Egyptian religion meant a
person's soul.
Max said he
wasn't interested in the meaning. ``When I go home, I'm going
to write it on a piece of paper 100 times and then burn it,”
he said.
The National
Scrabble Association, though, hopes kids remember more about
Scrabble words than just how to spell them. The association,
for which Mr. Loiterstein is an educational consultant,
encourages incorporation of the game into the curriculum. The
association is part of the outreach program of Hasbro, the
maker of the popular board
game.
``I used Scrabble in
the classroom all the time, and it was a phenomenal experience
for the kids. They got a lot of math out of it, language,
dictionary skills and team work,” said Mr. Loiterstein, 39, a
former fifth-grade teacher in Brookline. After seeing how
effective the board game is in the classroom, Mr. Loiterstein
stopped teaching and began working with the National Scrabble
Association.
Mr. Loiterstein
has been playing the game competitively since 1996. He began
Saturday's activities by sharing some of his key strategies
with the young players. They include compiling more than one
word on each turn, adding prefixes and suffixes and thinking
one turn ahead. After sharing the tips, Mr. Loiterstein moved
around the room, evoking awe and frustration from the young
players as he competed in simultaneous games. The competition
involved 12 four-person
teams.
The game begins with
each player or team receiving seven letter tiles, each with a
particular point value. After forming the first word, players
receive additional letters to build words onto existing words.
Whoever has the most points at the end of the game
wins.
``We stink. He has 132
points and we have 23. That's not right,” Robert Lopes, a
sixth-grader at the JFK School
said.
When a player forms a
word, the opponent can challenge that it is not a legitimate
word. Adam Ostrowski, a senior at the high school, was
responsible for checking the official Scrabble dictionary.
Words that are in regular dictionaries but are not in the
Scrabble dictionary are not
acceptable.
Luna Greenwood,
the children's librarian, said the purpose of the activities
was to get kids and parents interested in playing the
educational game.
``Scrabble
is a game that teaches kids a lot of academic skills in a
really fun way that they don't even know they're learning,”
Ms. Greenwood said. ``We're trying to get some teachers in
Hudson interested in using Scrabble in their classrooms to
help promote arts and all the skills involved with
Scrabble.”
Since the School
Scrabble Program was developed in 1991, more than 500,000
students in more than 18,000 schools nationwide have played
the game.
Julie
Welch-Bucceri, a teacher at JFK School, who played on Team 7
with three pupils, said she is inspired to bring the game into
her classes. She has had pupils write anagrams from words she
writes on the chalkboard, she
said.
``We're so busy. We
have so much curriculum work to do, but this obviously is very
engaging and helps them to learn new vocabulary words and to
just think on their feet,” Ms. Welch-Bucceri
said.
``It's a fun way of
learning. Much better than just lecturing,” Berge Ferjulian,
one of Ms. Welch-Bucceri's team members, said as he peered at
the words on his Scrabble board. ``But, I still don't
understand what Goa
means.”
Fellow team member
Zubin Patel explained that Goa is a state in his native
country of India.
Being the
expert Scrabble player that he is, Mr. Loiterstein had no
problems beating all the teams, except one, Team 12. The four
amateurs were in the lead 196-171, until the very last
play.
``I don't know what I'm
going to do with you folks. I'm going to have to make up
something,” a visibly concerned Mr. Loiterstein quipped, as he
formed the word ``taeniae.” (Among other meanings, taeniae are
defined as ancient Greek
headbands.)
Team 12
challenged the word and lost. The team consisted of Andrew
Mulcahy, a fifth-grade pupil from Plainville; his grandmother,
Marge Mulcahy of Needham; Jeff MacQuarrie of Northboro and a
Marlboro firefighter; and Margaret M. Warner, Andrew's aunt
and principal of St. Michael's
School.
Most said they have
been playing Scrabble for years. Mr. MacQuarrie, 40, said he
began playing 20 years ago. He belongs to a Scrabble club in
Framingham and plays with other firefighters during down
time.
Andrew said his
grandmother got him started playing Scrabble when he was about
5 years old.
``I love
Scrabble. Anybody I can corner into playing with me, including
5-year-olds, I will,” the grandmother said.