Alfred Butts , who was born on this day in 1899, invented the game of Scrabble. This game uses letter tiles to spell words. There is a child’s version of this game and host families may own it. For very beginning readers you can play this game by encouraging the children to spell out simple words. Remember that vowels (a, e, i, o, u) appear many times in simple words. Playing even a simple form of Scrabble strengthens the children’s reading and pre-reading skills and spelling skills while having fun too!