Ever since the increased popularity of the Wordle game among all age groups, it has become a part of our daily lives from the living rooms to Wordle in the Classroom. People are not only playing this word game to challenge their vocabulary but to get into a healthy competition and hence, kickstart their day with a much-needed dopamine kick. According to a research study by Steam Charts, 900 people on average played the Wordle game in January 2023. 

Designed by British Software Engineer, Josh Wardle, Wordle is no less popular among teachers, especially those with linguistics and literature backgrounds. Interestingly, this puzzle game has become the new favourite for teachers to improve their pupil’s vocabulary, teach phonics and introduce phrasal verbs in a fun yet interactive manner. In this article, we are going to discuss the increasing use of Wordle in the classroom and shed light on the innovative ways teachers are incorporating the game into English lessons.  But first things first, let us introduce you to the world of Wordle if you haven’t come across this treasure yet!

Wordle is a five-letter word guessing game in which colour-based hints are provided to the users to help them figure out the correct word. To guess the right word, the players need to enter the first word and solve the puzzle in six guesses.

Once players enter the first word, the game highlights letters in the word in different colours to let them know how close they are to guessing the right word. They may see three types of colour-coded letters appear in front of them.

A green colour means the letter is right and is in the right place, a yellow colour indicates the letter is right but in the wrong spot, whereas a grey-coloured letter doesn’t belong to the 5-letter word. The original Wordle game allows the players to guess only one word per day. However, there are multiple variations of Wordle available now, that offer multiple takes per day. Let’s discover in detail the popularity of Wordle in the classroom and figure out the innovative ways teachers are incorporating Wordle into English lessons!

Though there are multiple spinoffs of Wordle available in the market, we have shortened the list to the best 5 spinoffs. Make the best use of Wordle in the classroom through these best Wordle variations for teaching English lessons:

Word Master

An unlimited version of Wordle, enjoy Wordle for 24 hours with the Word Master. You can play as many games as you like with your students to help them improve their English vocabulary.

MyWordle.me

For teachers, MyWordle.me is the best variation of the Wordle to create a custom Wordle and choose a mystery word relevant to the lesson you are going to teach.

Hello World

If you want to expand the five-three-letter word to an 11-letter one and enjoy unlimited guessing in the meantime too, try Hello World with your students.

Spello

If you are looking to improve your student’s spelling, use custom grid lengths to enter the word in Spello and ask them to guess the spellings after they hear the word.

Wordle Together

If you want to create healthy competition among your students, you can use Wordle Together to ask any of your two students to guess the right word either on the same board or on individual boards

The Wordle craze has crossed the classroom boundaries and teachers are actively seeking games like Wordle to teach English lessons. They are religiously using Wordle in the classroom and often try multiple approaches to teach important lessons in play-based activities. 

We are going to discuss the use of Wordle in the classroom and talk about the top 3 innovative ways teachers are incorporating the game into English.

The Whiteboard version of the Wordle became popular after sixth-grade ELA and Social Studies teacher, Emily Halbig encountered an intriguing question from one of her students. After her student inquired whether she plays the Wordle game, that’s when she decided to play this game with her students due to their deep love for the word puzzle.

At first, she used Chrome like hundreds and thousands of online players but then she figured out how students were already playing the word game on their own devices to guess the word beforehand. That’s when she decided to use a whiteboard to play the game within her classroom.

In her version of the game, the students write random five-letter words on index cards, from which she chooses a random word and then asks them to guess the secret word. 

Fourth-grade ELA and Social Studies teacher, Drew Kelley, created his own version of the Wordle game to help his students in vocabulary building in a fun way. He used a dry-erase version of the daily Wordle to guess the right word. Just like the online Wordle variations, he drew colour-coded boxes around the letters to give hints to his students.

In this Wordle spinoff, he eliminated the need for papers and used a recyclable approach to guess a five-letter word. Once the students finish their daily word puzzle, he erases the board and prepares it for the next Wordle in class. He uses this Wordle template to let the students guess the words about the topic he intends to teach them. 

Another 5th-grade teacher, Christina Nosek has been using a similar method to teach her students about letter and vowel combinations. Just like Mr. Kelley, she used a dry eraser marker, a piece of chart paper and an eliminated sheet to create a reusable version of the Wordle game for her Students.

School librarian, Beth Thomas noticed the popularity of the my Wordle game among seventh graders as they were playing it on the Chromebook and decided to steal the opportunity to play Wordle together on unit vocabulary. The students were researching the Lewi’s and Clark’s expedition and she asked them to guess the word around that topic. 

She has been keeping the game alive by asking students to play the game at lunchtime. She ha kept the floor open to suggestions to choose a Wordle topic of their choice. She plans to expand this version of Wordle and incorporate it into the research projects.

The world is not limited to these variations but you can make your own Wordle to teach about CVC, words, phrasal verbs or teach any English lesson to make learning more fun and memorable for your students!