Why Your Kid Thinks a "Simile" is a Type of Pasta (And How We’re Fixing That with Gamification)

Lose the boredom with Gamification

Parents, trying to explain figurative language to a seven-year-old is a bit like trying to gift-wrap a wet octopus. You start with high hopes and a roll of Scotch tape, and five minutes later, you’re covered in ink and questioning your life choices.

I once told a student that a certain character was "as brave as a lion," and they looked at me with genuine concern and asked if the character was going to start eating raw zebra. We have a literalism problem, folks. And while I love a good zebra steak joke as much as the next person, if we want our kids to actually feel the magic of a story, we have to teach them how to look past the surface.

The "Brick Breaker" Philosophy

In my house (and my writing studio), we don't do "boring." If a concept feels like a chore, we turn it into a game. Think about the classic Brick Breaker: you’ve got a wall of obstacles, and you need the right tool to smash through them. Figurative language is that tool. It’s the power-up that turns a flat sentence like "The sun was hot" into "The sun was a golden furnace."

But how do we get kids to stop squinting at metaphors like they’re unsolvable riddles? We make it a treasure hunt. We use gamification.

The Art of the Hidden Heart (and Ladybug, and Candy Cane...)

If you’ve read any of my books, you know I’m a sucker for a "Seek and Find" moment. Whether it’s a tiny ladybug hitching a ride in grandma’s garden, a stray candy cane tucked behind a snowdrift, or a hidden heart stitched into a quilt, these tiny details serve a purpose. They train the eye to look closer. They reward the reader for not just reading, but observing.

Teaching literacy works exactly the same way. A metaphor is just a hidden heart in a sentence. You have to hunt for the meaning tucked behind the words. When I’m writing, I treat my descriptions like those hidden ladybugs. I want a child to stumble upon a personification—like "the wind whistled a lonely tune"—and feel that same "Aha!" moment they get when they finally spot the candy cane hidden in the frosting of a gingerbread house.

Gamifying the Classroom (and the Living Room)

When we gamify literacy, the "wall" of complex language starts to crumble. Here’s the secret sauce:

1. The Search: Find a sentence.

2. The Smash: Identify the "trick" (Is it a simile? A metaphor? Hyperbole?).

3. The Reward: Use that new "power-up" to write an even wilder sentence.

By connecting the visual "Seek and Find" experience to the intellectual "Word Find" experience, we aren't just teaching kids to pass a test. We’re teaching them to be detectives of the imagination.

So, the next time your little reader is hunting for the ladybug on page twelve, remind them that authors hide secrets in the words, too. And no, a simile is still not a pasta—though "as wiggly as a noodle" is a great place to start.