Duffield Elementary, 2nd Graders. The LetterJAM! Group Learning tool goes live.  25 students worked in teams of four - LetterBanker, LetterJammer, LetterHunter, and LetterWriter. The entire class worked on minimal pairs of words that end in "ate".  Through the alphabet they went and, to almost everyone's surprise, "bate" is a real word!  The custom miniature letter cards landed on an "AlphaBoard" as kids used the new Merriam-Webster Children's Dictionary to learn new words and read aloud the definitions. Kids then went to "AlphaWar" with their cards.

Kalamazoo Public Schools hosts its annual Family Literacy Night in nearly 20 buildings. Lucky parents and kids picked up nearly 300 LetterJAM! FunPacks to get into word power exercises!

The Hawthorne Teen Center gets into jamming and makes it a weekly, even daily event, for drop-ins to go head-to-head playing FreeStyle solo or in pairs. Tournaments within and among other L.A. after-school clubs are just around the corner.

At the HYPE (Helping Young People Excel) Division of the Detroit Public Library, the Founder hosted a first-ever elimination tourney among 16 teens competing for gift cards. The winning pair plays "H-E-A-S" and they get promptly challenged for "No Match" The captain calmly announces "southeastern, and they are crowed the grand prize winner.

To help celebrate National Gaming Day sponsored by the American Library Association, LetterJAM! is spread out to nearly 1,000 libraries across the 50 United States. Says Founder Greg Yu: "Libraries are strapped for funds, but not for patrons. so AlphaBound joined several other notable game companies to donate for the cause!" Letters poured in from all over, with raves about LetterJAM! and the fun teens and adults shared in jamming each other in the FreeStyle game. Stay tuned for ALA's National Gaming Day in 2011!

AlphaBound appears at the Detroit Institute of Arts to introduce young kids to Lj, our official mascot who points kids and readers in the right direction. The EducationExpo saw hundreds of families see the best of education, tools and schools in the Metro area. AlphaBound introduced the new "FunPack" version of LetterJAM! Kids can play their cards on the foldable "AlphaBoard." Parents can join in the fun, too, learning and playing simultaneously.

This is the site of the first-ever "LetterJAM! Tourney" in the United States. 48 competitors that included teachers, parents, teens and even a local author, showed up at the Wrought Iron Grill to test their mettle against each other The Founder introduced the Freestyle version to the crowd, and in minutes, pairs were jamming against each other. Guests gave their first-hand interviews of the fun and intrigue. The winning team lodged a "No Match" challenge after the runner-up pair played "U-S-Q-U-A-S" and could name an English word that contained "-usquas-". Next time, they'll be sure to remember "musquash" which means muskrat fur!

It's the annual SoCal Kindergarten Conference. A 12-year old wows us with us playing and beating the Inventive Director multiple times on LJ-Freestyle. LJ, the mascot, makes his presence known. Two raffle winners get an LJ Teacher's Pack, including a grateful PE teacher. Is spelling and vocabulary needed in PE class? "Absolutely" she says. A local bookstore wants to see about hosting an LJ-Freestyle community tournament. Why not get people away from their homes and game controllers and test their skill and mettle under pressure in front of a crowd?

AlphaBound launches LetterJAM! at the International Reading Association Annual Convention in Phoenix, Arizona. We are at booth 1012 at the Phoenix Convention Center. Teachers and educators win single colored Letter JAM! decks by being the first in their small group to name a word containing a selected three-letter chain posted on the board at the booth. With "-P-E-C-", the number one choice and winner is "pectoral". Others go with "peck" or "impeccable." The Teacher's Pack draws curiosity, then sales from teachers and educators. The Individual Pack is a draw to those who simply like to compete with words and letters. www.letterjam.com goes live! IP players can go straight to the Website to check out words and challenges.