Word Builder

The big ideas

What the levels teach, in grown-up words.

• Words are letters in order. C, A, T in that order spells cat. The same letters in another order spell something else or nothing at all. Order is what makes spelling work.
• Every word needs a vowel. The middle letter of cat, pen, pig, dog and cup is a vowel, and swapping it swaps the word. Hearing the middle sound is the hardest part of spelling short words.
• Change one letter, get a new word. A word ladder (cat, hat, hot, pot, pet, pen) shows that words are built from parts that can be swapped, which is how children learn to read whole families of words.
• Some sounds take two letters. SH in ship and the vowel team OA in boat are single sounds spelled with two letters, and the silent e in cake changes the vowel before it. These patterns cover thousands of words.
• Long words are short parts. Rabbit is rab plus bit. Spelling a long word one syllable at a time is far easier than trying to hold all the letters at once.

Try it at home

Quick experiments that match the game.

1. Fridge-magnet workshop. Spell a short word with magnet letters, then swap one letter at a time and read what you get: cat, hat, hot, pot. Nonsense words are fine as long as you say so.
2. Vowel swap. Write b_g on paper and try every vowel: bag, beg, big, bog, bug. Which ones are real words?
3. Clap and spell. Clap the parts of a long word (rab-bit, pump-kin) and spell one part at a time.
4. Sound spelling. Say a short word slowly and have your child write a letter for each sound they hear. Praise the sounds they caught before fixing the spelling.