Alphaladder (ABC)

Description
Alphaladder is a collaborative activity devised by Dr Helen McGrath. It is a game in which
students work together to guess a mystery word. Alphaladder teaches students about the
structure and function of words. It is a useful, fun adjunct to the language component of an
English program. Alphaladder gives a snapshot of students’ ability to analyse and describe
word function and structure. It also provides evidence of their skills in collaborative discussion.

Procedure
Mystery Word
Choose a mystery word for the students to guess. The word could be chosen to tie in with an
issue the class has been discussing, or to reinforce an aspect that is a current teaching point.

Teams
Divide the students into teams of five with assigned roles of questioner, runner, recorder, social
skills scribe and leader.

Each team now prepares 10 Yes or No questions which must only be about the structure of the
word, not its meaning. Questions could be about the number of syllables, or the part of speech,
the presence of blends, double letters, plurals and so on. In the first round, the students have
ten minutes to work out their questions, then two minutes as they refine their skills.

One team is the performing team, which calls out their questions. They have six minutes to call
out questions and work out the answer, but two 90-second time-out sessions are also allowed
for students to confer and rethink their strategy. They can call out the answer as soon as they
think they’ve got it.

The remaining teams are the shadowing teams, who try to guess the mystery word before the
performing team. They do this silently, then write down the word and run it out to the teacher. It
must be written down with the number of the last question asked. Meanwhile the game
continues as the guess may be incorrect.

Scoring
Scoring is simple. The performing team scores two points for every question they don’t have to
use and the shadowing team gets a bonus if they guess the correct answer before the
performers.

Link to Outcomes
Students describe and reason with patterns, structures and relationships in order to understand,
interpret, justify and make predictions.

Dynamic Strategies
Think/Clarification

Adapted from Tasmanian Education Department, Dr Helen McGrath

 Alphaladder (ABC)
Mystery Word

Questions

Guesses