L. Elizabeth Forry
Table of contents
If your family is like most, the Wordle craze hit your household sometime over the last year or so.
This five-letter word game took the country by storm, providing a fun yet competitive way to interact with friends via social media.
Many people enjoy sharing their scores and boasting about how quickly they solved the daily Wordle, while others simply want to see if they can solve the daily puzzle.
Related: 21 Free Educational Apps for Kids
So why did this simple word puzzle game become such a huge phenomenon?
Why Do We Love Playing Wordle and Other Word Games?
Kids and adults alike love games like Wordle that challenge them to problem-solve, boost their vocabulary and lets them compete against other players – and against themselves!
Words with Friends, an online Scrabble game, was another hit word game app that had people around the world glued to their phones. Games like Words with Friends and Wordle make learning a lot more fun.
Wordle was initially developed by software engineer Josh Wardle for his puzzle-loving partner. His family quickly became entranced by the game, and he released the game for public consumption in October 2021.
Wordle was such a smash hit that The New York Times acquired the game in early 2022. Now anyone can go to the New York Times website to get a new Wordle puzzle to solve once a day. This daily game remains free for users to play and share results.
If you’ve been swept up by the Wordle craze and are looking for additional word games for you and your children to play, we have compiled an extensive list of the best word and Wordle-inspired games for kids and families.
7 Alternatives to World for Kids
Given Wordle’s popularity, it's little wonder that several Wordle spin-offs were quickly made available.
If the once-daily play of Worlde isn’t enough to satiate your kid’s online word game fix, here are some similar options they can try!
Wordle for Kids is the same design and play style as the original game but uses more common words. It also allows users to play as many times in a row as they like.
The game allows users to select from nearly twenty languages, making it perfect for kids practicing or learning another language.
Game settings allow users to play unlimited daily words or once every 24 hours. You can also turn on “hard mode” to create a challenge or adjust the number of letters per word from three to eleven.
Taylor Swift fans will love this 5-letter word game similar to the original Wordle. Fans have six guesses to guess a five-letter Taylor Swift-related word.
The color scheme is like the original, with yellow indicating a correct letter in the wrong spot and green showing a letter in the correct place.
Wizards, witches, and muggles alike will love playing Wizarding Wordle. A Harry Potter-themed Wordle game.
Each mystery word is connected to the magical series. The webpage includes fun Harry Potter facts related to the week, like birthdays and famous events in the series that happened on related dates.
ESL Wordle is a teaching tool designed to help children learn English as a second language. Young spellers and little ones will also enjoy this guessing game, and it is an excellent way to work on phonics.
This version of Wordle is unique because it allows users to choose a category narrowing down the word choices. Categories include body parts, animals, food, sports, countries, prepositions, clothes, and irregular verbs.
The game doesn’t allow you to reuse incorrect letters, which can make the game challenging since players can’t guess a knowingly wrong word to look for possible letters, and there are no hint buttons or options.
The game will, however, accept words that don’t fall within the category or are not actual words.
Wordle! Is just like the original game, and the app works on Apple and Android. It has ads which are annoying to adults but typically don’t bother kids as much.
The app has other games included like Secret Word, a word association game, and Word Fever, a fast-paced spelling game.
Both additional games start with a four-letter word, and as you advance in skill, you can up the number of letters per word.
Quordle takes the original Wordle to a new level. Quordle gameplay involves solving four puzzles at once. However, you get nine tries to solve the four puzzles instead of six.
When a player enters a word, it plays across all four puzzles showing green letters for any in the right spot and yellow for correct letters in the wrong spot.
It is definitely a game that requires concentration and multitasking!
Hello Wordl is a variation of the original game that you can play an unlimited number of times on your computer or phone browsing.
Players can set the word length from four to eleven letters. It has a give-up button, so if your brain is truly fried, you can see the word and try again!
Online Vocal and Spelling Games for Kids
If your child wants to focus on boosting their vocab or perfecting their spelling, have them try one of these entertaining games!
Spectacular Spelling Play is found on PBS.org. It is part video, part interactive spelling and phonics game.
Princess Pesto tells your child what word they will spell together and then walks them through sounding out the phonics and choosing the correct letters.
Once your child is finished interacting with the characters, they can reset the game and start over with a new word.
Spellie is set up like Wordle and has easy medium and hard options. The easy option uses a four-letter word and provides the player with the first letter.
Spellie also has a hint option I found helpful. Each level offers one puzzle per day.
Word Ladder is a multi-level game designed for 1st grade through high school! Simply select your level and fill in the missing letter.
The words come with pictures to help the user solve the word. Word Ladder is an excellent tool for ESL learners and those working on spelling.
Wordscapes is a crossword puzzle/Scrabble-style game that requires players to build related words on a board. Users connect letters to spell a word.
If the word is correct, it automatically appears on the board in the correct spot. All the words in the puzzle will use a combination of some or all of the same letters.
Once on the board, players can click on words to read a word's definition.
More Fun Games Like Wordle
The Wordle craze has inspired similar style games related to music and numbers. Dordle, for example, is a double-word version that users can play from their computers.
Other classic word games like Scrabble, Hangman, and Word Searches are also available as apps or desktop play.
Kids who love music will also love playing Heardle! Heardle is a music game where you get a few seconds of a popular song and have to guess the artist and title.
While not a spelling or word game, per se, it requires users to know how to spell and encourages typing and keyboard practice.
Heardle is a once-daily play, but the site offers fun alternatives like Christmas Heardle, Rap Heardle, 80s Heardle, KPop Heardle, 90s Heardle, etc. Each version allows the player one game daily.
Word search games help children with letter and word recognition and spelling.
The version linked here by learningapps.com displays the word list at the top and automatically crosses out the word once your child has highlighted it on the screen.
Don’t be confused by the title of this game; it’s not a misspelling. It’s actually a play on words! Worldle is a geography game that can help kids and adults better understand our world!
Instead of yellow and green squares for correct letters and placement, once you guess, it gives you a proximity score. The larger the percentage, the closer your guess is to the actual locale.
For example, if you guessed Germany and the answer was France, you would have a very high proximity score.
However, if you guessed South Korea and the answer was France, it would be much lower.
The classic game Scrabble, is available as an app for Apple and Android and is an excellent way to challenge yourself to daily world challenges.
Players can adjust settings to vary the difficulty, and you can play against a real person or the computer.
Nerdle is a game for number lovers. Like Wordle, the player must guess a combination of numbers and symbols to complete the puzzle.
The game is like Sudoku meets Wordle. This game will help children recognize patterns, problem-solve, and think logically.
Benefits of Playing Word Games for Kids
The more access a child has to experiment and play with letters, sounds, and words, the quicker and easier their literacy and language skills will develop.
While there are many wonderful and beneficial ways to engage your child in literacy without screen time, nothing replaces reading to your child; the truth is that the age we live in is a digital one.
Games like Wordle are a great option for parents who need to occupy their kid while cooking dinner, on a long car ride or in the waiting room of the doctor’s office. Solving word games and other puzzles are a way to make their screen time more beneficial and active.
Interactive word games and word puzzles help children (and adults) develop problem-solving and critical thinking skills, encourage us to think outside the box, and expose us to new words!
For even more fun word games and puzzles for kids, check out our printable word search and puzzle games:
