Build a Word Generator
A set of letters, and as many words as a child can find in them. It is the exercise where the sheet asks and the reader answers, which makes the answer sheet an unusual thing to be careful about — so it is described exactly rather than loosely. It lists the words from this site's own word lists that those letters can spell. It is not every word in English, because no list here is the English language, and the sheet says so: a good word that is not on it still counts. What can be checked is checked — every word listed really can be spelled from the letters printed, counting repeated letters, and the long word that uses all of them is there at the bottom.
What this generator does
Takes a longer word from this site's governed word lists, shuffles its letters onto the sheet, and works out every shorter word in those lists that the letters can spell — checking each one against the letters, repeats included.
How to use this tool
- Choose how hard it should be — that sets how many letters there are and how many words they will make.
- Choose how many writing lines to print.
- Make the sheet and print it.
- Show the words to add the answer sheet, which groups them by length.
- Give a seed if you want the same letters again for another group.
Understanding the controls
- How hard
- Sets how many letters are printed and the fewest words the sheet is allowed to be worth. Gentle is six or seven letters and at least five words; stretch is eight or nine and at least twelve.
- Writing lines
- How many ruled lines print under the letters. Worth matching to how long you expect a child to keep going rather than to the number of answers.
- Show the words
- Adds a second sheet listing the words grouped by length, with the word that uses every letter at the bottom.
- Seed
- A word gives back exactly the same letters in the same order, so a class can all be given the same sheet.
Common use cases
- A five-minute starter that needs no marking scheme
- Independent work for a child who has finished early
- Vocabulary practice that rewards trying rather than knowing
- A quiet activity that only needs a pencil
- A whole-class competition with a shared answer sheet
Randomness and fairness
Which set of letters is chosen, and the order they are printed in, are decided using the browser's secure generator. Typing a seed switches to a repeatable sequence so the same sheet can be printed twice; that path is for reproducibility and is not cryptographically strong.
For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.
Limitations and good to know
- The answer sheet lists the words from this site's own word lists, not every word in English. A child who finds a good word that is not listed has found a good word, and the sheet says so in as many words.
- There are between twenty and forty different sets of letters at each level, so a long run of sheets will eventually reuse one. That is the size of the word lists rather than a setting.
- The letters always come from one longer word, which is why there is always exactly one word that uses all of them.
- Words are lower-case letters only. Names, hyphenated words and anything with an apostrophe are left out, because a gap in one of those is a question about punctuation rather than about spelling.
Related generators
- Spelling Worksheet GeneratorMissing-letter, unscramble, ordering and syllable sheets where no question can be answered two different ways.
- Word Scramble GeneratorScramble your own spelling or vocabulary list into an unjumbling worksheet, with an answer key one tap away.
- Fill-In Crossword GeneratorA criss-cross grid with no clues: the words are printed underneath, grouped by length, and the puzzle is working out where each one goes.
- Cloze Worksheet GeneratorTurns any passage into a gap-fill sheet, with a word bank if you want one and an answer key that provably puts the passage back together.