Letter Slide is an engaging spelling game. In each round, players must think of as many four letter words as they can when either the first two or last two letters have been provided. Letter tiles are spread out in front of the players, so the letters needed to make words must be found in the "letter lagoon". A 60 sand timer marks the end of a round. After the words are made, one of each of the two letters that complete each word can be added to a "letter slide." The goal of the game is to be the first to cover all the spots on the slide. In the first rounds, the goal is to make as many words as possible, in order to cover as many spots on the slide as you can. In later rounds, players start to look at the letters they still need to see if they can make a word with those letters. Because the sand timer ends silently, sometimes the players are still scrambling to find letters for the next word without realizing the round is over. This game could benefit from an electronic timer. There are also simpler rules if you want to play with a child who is stressed by games with time limits or needs more time to think of the correct spelling.

This game, like many Simply Fun games, is a thinking game. There's a lot to be learned about spelling as children try out both long and short vowel sounds for the letters provided in a round and in thinking about the different ways words can be constructed (for example, consonant-vowel-consonant-silent e or consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant). Although the game says it's for ages 7 and up, we found that more advanced spellers had more fun than spellers that were still making some errors. The game works best with spellers of approximately equal ability. I would recommend this game because of the unique learning experience it provided.