Strengthening semantic and orthographic associations among words in a lexicon may help to improve memory processes related to fluent organizing and retrieval of language. In the present study, we examined how training in several different word games impacts later retrieval access for the words. Games included a word-stem completion task (orthographic), a free association task (semantic), and a crossword paradigm task (orthographic+semantic). A within-subject experiment was used to compare the relative effectiveness of these three training methods on a lexical association task performed prior to and following training. Results showed that the games were able to improve participants’ decision times, and the increased fluency in the lexical association task due to the free association task was greater than the other games. We will further apply and examine this study with non-native English speakers.

Word games such as crossword puzzles are widely used in ed-ucation to help familiarize students with technical vocabulary.Despite an extensive literature discussing their use, few pub-lished research articles have established their effectiveness onmemory retention and retrieval, especially in comparison tocontrol study methods. We report two experiments in whichuniversity introductory psychology students studied materialsrelevant to their coursework using an on-line interactive wordgame. Results showed that word games improved later tests ofthe material, both on immediate test and after a delay, and re-tention was most enhanced in comparison to control when theclues were solved repeatedly and given with difficult ortho-graphic hints. Importantly, easy clues were not retained overtime even with multiple repetitions. Results suggest that wordgames can be effective in this domain, but it depends on howthey are implemented, and several factors predicted by existingcognitive theory can guide implementation choices.