Wordle, the viral online guess-the-word game, has become a social media phenomenon and a source of fierce competition among its devotees. But in some classrooms, it鈥檚 also a teaching tool.
The game, purchased recently by The New York Times, requires players to guess a five-letter word in six tries.
Wordle gives clues as players try new words: It highlights letters green if they鈥檙e in the right position, yellow if they鈥檙e in the word but in the wrong position, and gray if they鈥檙e not in the word at all.
Lots of players post on social media their green and yellow boxes鈥攙isual scorecards which demonstrate how players got to the correct answer and how many tries it took. As these images flood feeds, some reading teachers and have entered the discussion, explaining how educators can use the game to grow students鈥� phonics skills.
鈥淭he more that I鈥檝e played with my students, the better I鈥檝e gotten, the better they鈥檝e gotten,鈥� said Maureen Elliott, a 4th grade teacher in the West Irondequoit school district in New York.
鈥淵ou can pick up on patterns of words or phonemes and graphemes that match together to make certain words, and you use more skills than you think you do when you first start,鈥� Elliott said.
Education Week spoke with two teachers about how they鈥檙e using Wordle in the classroom and what their students are taking away from the game.
