Directions for Playing Scrabble

Setup

• 1

  Choose a game dictionary. During the game, you may choose to challenge another player's word choice or spelling. Decide before game play begins which dictionary you will use for all challenges. All words are legal in the game of Scrabble except words that require capitalization, such as proper names, stand-alone prefixes or suffixes, hyphenated words, words with apostrophes and abbreviations.

• 2

  Place the game board on the playing surface. Each player also gets a game stand to hold letter tiles. Depending on the version of the game you are playing, the stand may be plastic or wooden.

• 3

  Place the letter tiles into the bag that comes with the game. Some games have a plastic bag. Others have a cloth bag.

• 4

  Choose a player to go first. Before the players draw their tiles, have each player draw one tile. The one with the letter closest to A goes first.

• 5

  Place the tiles from the previous step back in the bag. Mix the tiles up. Let each player pull seven tiles out to start the game.

Game Play

• 6

  Begin play. The first player plays a word using two to seven of the tiles on his or her game stand. One of the letters of the word must land on the center star square. The word can read top to bottom or right to left. The player then counts the tiles' score and records the score on a piece of paper. The player draws the number of tiles played from the tile bag and places them back on the stand.

• 7

  Use the same steps for Player 2. However, Player 2 does not play a word on the center star. Instead, the player's word must use one of the letters from the first player's word. If the player cannot form a word, he may exchange one to seven tiles for new tiles in the bag. If he chooses to exchange, that counts as his turn.

• 8

  Continue game play with all subsequent players.

• 9

  Challenge words you believe to be illegal by stating your intention to challenge. Challenges occur before the next player begins. Reference the dictionary chosen prior to game play. If the word is legal, the challenger loses her next turn. If the word is not legal, the player who played the word removes it from the game board and loses that turn.

• 10

  Play around the board in the same manner until the tile bag is empty and one player uses all the tiles on his stand. Alternatively, if not all the tiles can be used, game play ends when no more words can be made. The player with the highest score wins.

Scoring

• 11

  Count the points on each tile after playing a word. Find the point values printed on the corner of the tiles. Most game boards also have a legend of the tile points and the number of each tile.

• 12

  Count the square modifiers and add them to your tile points. For example, light blue squares double a letter's value. Dark blue squares triple the value of the letter played on them. The pink square doubles an entire word's point value. The red square triples the entire word's point value. If you modify a previously played word, such as adding -ing or -s to it, count the original word plus the new letters. Modified words do not get any square modifiers unless a new tile lands on a colored square.

• 13

  Add 50 points to the total word value of any word that BINGOs. A BINGO uses all seven tiles from your stand at one time.

• 14

  Deduct any unplayed tiles at the end of the game from the player's total score. The highest point total wins.