Scrabble stats

What to do

• Take a look at the current Scrabble points system. What do you notice? What do you wonder?

• Find a recent newspaper, magazine or book. Choose a paragraph or page to analyse.

• Create a table to record your findings.

• For each letter in the text you are analysing, record the frequency in your table using tally marks.

• How many times was each letter used in the text you investigated?

When you’re ready, watch the next video to see what to do next.

Instructions

• What do you notice about the frequency of the letters on your tally sheet?

• Does anything surprise you?

• Which letters were you expecting to be used most? Or least?

• Look at the letters that are most frequent (have the highest number) and least frequent (have the lowest number). Compare your data with the original Scrabble scoring system.

• Are there any similarities?

• Are there any differences?

• Using your Scrabble Stats findings, identify which letters you think should now be given the highest and lowest scores.

• You can also repeat your investigation with a different text.

  • Does the type of text we select change the letter frequencies?

  • What are some similarities and differences between both data sets?