Crack the Word is a five-minute deduction starter for the whiteboard. A word is hidden; the class suggests guesses; every guess comes back marked letter by letter until they can reason their way to the answer. The difference from a paper version is the letter tracker — the alphabet beside the grid colours itself in as you play, so the thinking is on the board where everyone can use it rather than in the heads of the quickest three.
How to play
It plays this week's spellings
Pick your year group and the week you're on, and the hidden words come straight from that week's spelling pattern — prefixes, silent letters, -ous endings, homophones. The starter revises the exact thing you're teaching, which is what turns five spare minutes into a lesson.
Why teachers like it
It works as a morning starter, a spelling warm-up, an end-of-lesson filler, a vocabulary revision round before a test, or a wet-play game.
How does the game work?
A word is hidden. The class suggests a guess of the same length and you type it in. Each letter comes back marked — right letter in the right place, right letter in the wrong place, or not in the word at all — and the class reasons from what's left until they crack it.
Where do the words come from?
From this week's national curriculum spelling pattern for your year group, from any topic you type, from a word you choose yourself, or from a built-in age-matched bank.
What is the letter tracker?
The alphabet sits beside the grid and colours itself in as you play — found, in there somewhere, or ruled out. It puts the deduction on the board so the whole class can use it, not just the quickest few.
Can pupils play along on paper?
Yes — print a blank play-along grid with an alphabet to cross off, so every child tracks their own thinking rather than watching the front row.
What game is this based on?
Jotto, a pen-and-paper word game devised by Morton Rosenfeld in 1955. Its letter-by-letter deduction is the basis of the format used by word games ever since, including the TV show Lingo.
Do I need to install anything?
No — it runs in your browser on a Mac, PC, Chromebook or tablet, and it's free to try.
Working on the same spelling pattern? Try Spelling Lists for the week's words and a read-aloud test — or turn them into a Word Search, an Anagram Smash or a Cloze.