Eleven Plus Puzzles

Children sometimes really enjoy working through eleven plus papers. There is a kind of rigid monotony to most papers. Once they have done four or five papers they will only meet something unexpected very occasionally.

We could consider introducing cryptograms. These are word puzzles in which incorrect letters have been substituted for correct ones.

TJ QNW ZBRI IN LDD ZOBI YOTSVADR YBR VN, QNW CWLI LINF PTXTRP IODC IOTRPL.

To solve this you, and your child, will need to formulate some rules. You could for example, try to identify the vowels. A different approach could be made through the short words.

The fun behind this is that the passages are could be made up of quotations. Your eleven plus child would then need to study a range of quotations. You would then need to explain the quotations. Some children may even be stimulated to understand the source of the quotations. This sort of learning is far less sterile than simply working through papers and exercises.

Try asking your child to explain this to you:

(If you want to see what children can do, you must stop giving them things.)