What it is: A viral sensation first released in 2021, the game gives you six chances to guess a five-letter word.
Why play? As one student told us, “It is a perfect combination of strategy, vocabulary, risk and guessing all in one package.” Another said, “By playing Wordle, I feel connected to millions of people across the world.” Teachers tell us that it fosters a love for words and language, and also helps develop their students’ reasoning skills.
Many educators seem to use it. For instance, in 2022, Lara Hunt, from Baytown, Texas, wrote:
I use Wordle with my newcomer emergent bilingual students everyday! I challenge them to figure out the words using an ESL dictionary. Sometimes they use the dictionary, and sometimes they don’t. The excitement is contagious when they figure out the word, especially if they used fewer tries than me!
Students also enjoy it on their own. In 2023, Jack Cole, a 16-year-old from Boca Raton, Fla., was a winner of our Summer Reading Contest with these reflections on the game, which he titled “Until Tomorrow, Wordle!”
When I first accepted your challenge, I thought you were a refreshing way to start my brain for the day. Well, 648 days later our relationship has, shall we say, evolved. There are days that you and I are as one. When this happens, I enjoy a challenging but solvable puzzle, smile, and move on with my day. Other mornings, you are exceptionally easy, leading me to believe that I am obviously an expert Wordler.
Then there are the other days. Wordle, although you vehemently deny it, I know you are getting sneakier over time. When you used the triple vowel for the unbelievably random word “CACAO,” I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Despite this courtesy, there are the days that you slide in the double consonant words when you know full well people aren’t thinking of two “N’s in “ENNUI.” I mean, that’s not even English! Then, you get downright subversive. For example, “PARER” is a word that may be used outside of a professional kitchen once a year. I fully admit that I threw my (encased) phone at the couch when you told me on guess four that “PAPER” was incorrect. You knew that would ruin people’s days, right?
And the worst part, Wordle, is that I can’t clean out my phone’s history because I’m terrified of losing my 232-day winning streak. Until tomorrow, Wordle!
Make it your own: In 2022 we asked teachers to tell us how they use Wordle and to offer advice for others. Here is some of what they said:
Dean Schmeltz, from Denver:
By the end of last school year, I was starting my classes with a quick game of Wordle most days. I’d load the site on a big screen in front of the room, and students would call out word suggestions, trying to convince one another what the next guess should be. Wordle was a language-related way to bring more collaboration into the classroom, and ensure that my students experienced a collective win within the first few minutes of class.
Engagement was voluntary — it was more of a free-for-all than a typical “Do Now” activity, which would be expected of everyone and aligned to the lesson. It was often an opportunity to observe how participatory individual students were feeling that day.
Traci Fontana, from Fort Collins, Colo.:
I use Wordle as a way to discuss word strategies. Top strategies include:
1. Start with a word with at least two vowels (and many need a refresher in what vowels are) and high frequency consonants. We discuss what these might be.
2. Think of sounds that commonly blend together — such as sh, sl, st, tr, ch, etc. when faced with a single consonant and you have established it is not followed by a vowel.
3. When an A is in the third letter position, it is a long A when the last letter is E. The e is silent. For English language learners, this helps as they add unfamiliar words to their personal word bank.
4. There are familiar ways that words end, more than simply -ing. We discuss those and take note of them too as we encounter them in various texts.
Catherine Murray, from Wayne, N.J.:
As a high school French Teacher, I create my own Wordle in French. The first student who gets it receives a small prize — a no homework pass, or something comparable. They love it!
Liz Mendoza, from Phoenix:
We use the D.I.Y. Wordle knockoffs more. We will use these as anticipatory sets for new content area and as very low stakes formative assessments. We choose words related to topics we will be studying in class.
Sean Flanagan, from New York City:
In my fourth grade homeroom, we do an “offline” version using five blank squares and X’s and O’s and check marks to represent gray, yellow and green. The kids love it! After I choose a word, I let a student pick the next one.
What else to know: There is a new Wordle every day. Though your students will quickly develop their own strategies for winning, here is a collection of the best tips and tricks from solvers all over the world, and an article on how people choose a starting word. There is also a Wordle bot that analyzes your play, as well as a daily Wordle review. And because so many classrooms have adopted a Wordle habit, you can find many more ideas online, as in this piece from Education Week. You can also find variations through pieces like “Wordle Inspired Games for the Classroom” or this collection called “LikeWordle.”
Finally, if your students don’t know Wordle’s origin story, they are sure to be charmed by it.
Katherine Schulten and Natalie Proulx
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