I love it.  My granddaughters (7 and 11) - not so much.  We don't compete - just make up our words and try to insert them.  You can use whatever tiles are left to make up your words.  They like that and I assume they are learning new words and spelling them.  We tried using the 11 year old spelling words hoping that would give her another way to look at them.  That didn't go well and I had to look for where she hid the banana. In the past we had an apple - same idea.  Don't have that at this house.  I recommend the game - just make up your own rules.