Crosswords and Vocabulary
Its always fun to tackle crosswords puzzles. It helps stimulate the mind and keep it sharp which is way better than not doing anything at all. If you do the latter, youll end up bored and leave your brain building up cobwebs. And if you do nothing long enough, youll probably end up with a memory problem or even a brain disease. One of the more obvious benefits of exercising crossword puzzle solving is improving your vocabulary. Crosswords and vocabulary have always been considered interrelated, one affecting the other.
Crosswords puzzles have been around for a while now. Since it was first published in 1913, it has always found itself printed in newspapers and magazines. Books have been published about it and various book of puzzles have been released. Puzzle makers continue to create crosswords for the enjoyment of everyone and so I dont think they will stop anytime soon.
We all know that a crossword puzzle is composed of clues to answers that are arranged horizontally and vertically on a puzzle grid. The crisscrossing letters should in most puzzles create valid words themselves. The clues can be as vague or as easy as the puzzle maker decides. The time it will take you to answer the clues and complete the puzzle is directly proportional to how wide your general knowledge is or at times on a certain subject. The latter is true for crossword puzzles created for a specific field, like a biology crossword or a politically influenced one.
Now because the puzzle does not actually show the words, only the spaces available in the puzzle grid, you can deduce what to right based on the clues provided. However, since clues can be very difficult to cipher at times, people find it easier to answer a crossword puzzle if they have a wider set of vocabulary. Of course, to some or a lot of extent this is true. But you can learn a lot from frequenting those puzzle sections on the papers. As you gain more experience with solving puzzles, you will realize that solving crossword puzzles is not always about having a wider vocabulary. Admittedly it helps, but there are other ways to solve puzzles without basing it too much on your knowledge of various words.
Some of these techniques involve the power of deduction. For example, the clue might be so ambiguous that when you try solving it on your own youll end up stuck. What you do is refer to the other words already laid out on the puzzle grid. By looking at the letters, you might be able to construct the right answers.
Focusing on vocabulary development, the effects of crossword puzzles have been observed to be more apparent for the elderly and children. For the elderly, the crossword puzzles are there to help stimulate the mind and keep them active. Meanwhile, the effects of puzzles on children are quite different. The development of childrens mental development can be assisted by crossword puzzles. The crosswords can be considered in the same level as educational toys and games.
Indeed, crossword puzzles can be of great assistance to people who want to improve their vocabulary. However, without reading and exploring other stories or articles, your vocabulary will be limited on how to spell the words and their meanings but you might find it difficult to get the proper usage for these words.