How to play
- Drag through touching letters. Any direction counts, diagonals included. Drag back over the last tile to undo it without lifting your finger.
- Lift to submit. A real word of 3 letters or more clears; anything else just clears your selection.
- Long words blast. A word of 5 letters or more also clears every tile touching it. Where you spell it matters as much as what you spell.
- Find the five spelling words. They are listed above the board. Finding all five finishes the level.
- Stuck? 2 hints a level will light up the first letter of a spelling word you have not found. Each one costs five points.
Why the board falling in matters
In a word search the grid never moves: you scan it, you find the words, you are finished. Here the board is different after every word you make, so the letters around a spelling word keep changing and you have to keep looking at it fresh. That is the difference between reading a word once and reading it a dozen times, which is what actually makes a spelling stick.
It also means a level cannot be memorized. Two children on the same board will take different routes through it within a minute, and a child who replays a level plays a genuinely different game.
How the scoring works
| What you did | Points |
|---|---|
| A word of three or four letters | Its letters added up |
| Five or six letters | Double |
| Seven letters or more | Triple |
| One of the five spelling words | All of the above, plus five points a letter |
| Five letters or more | Also clears every tile touching the word |
| A hint | −5 |
Common letters are worth one point, D and G two, the middle of the alphabet three or four, and K, J, X, Q and Z between five and ten. Scores are worked out on the server from the words you found, not by the page, so a leaderboard means what it says.
This level
Level 1 is Kindergarten Words on a 6×7 board, with 5 spelling words planted in it — the longest 5 letters. Level numbers are stable, so send someone level 1 and they get this exact board. No answers here.
Four ways to score more
- Look for the spelling words first. They are worth several ordinary words each, and clearing tiles around them can bury them.
- Long beats often. One seven-letter word usually beats three three-letter ones, because of the multiplier.
- Clear from the bottom. Taking tiles low in the board moves everything above them, which shuffles far more of the grid than taking tiles off the top.
- Spend the awkward letters. A Q or a Z sitting in the board is worth a lot in a word and nothing where it is.
For teachers and parents
Every level plants five words from a SpellingJoy grade list in the starting board, and the scoring makes finding them the obvious thing to do. Open the leaderboard and choose Challenge your class for a link — everyone who opens it plays the same board and the same five words.
Nobody signs in and nobody types a name. If you want this week’s list on paper instead, the worksheet generator will print it.
Questions
How do you play Word Stack?
Put your finger on a letter and drag through the letters next to it — up, down, sideways or diagonally — to spell a word. Lift your finger and, if it is a real word, those tiles clear. Everything above them falls into the gap and new letters arrive at the top, so the board is different after every word.
What are the five words listed at the top?
They are the point of the game. Five words from a real SpellingJoy grade list are planted in the starting board, and finding one is worth several times what an ordinary word is worth. A child playing for points ends up hunting for this week’s spellings without being asked to.
How is it scored?
Every letter has a value — the letters English uses constantly are worth one, the awkward ones more — and a word scores the sum of its letters. Five-letter words double that, seven-letter words triple it. One of the planted spelling words also earns five points per letter on top, so it is always worth far more than a word of your own.
What counts as a word?
Any word of 3 letters or more from the game's dictionary — about seventeen thousand common English words, filtered so that nothing a child should not read is in there. Proper nouns and very rare words are left out on purpose: guessing at letter combinations should not be rewarded.
Can I use it with my class?
Yes. Open the leaderboard and choose Challenge your class for a link. Everyone who opens it gets the same board and the same five spelling words, so the class can be compared fairly. No accounts, no names, no student data.
Is it free?
Yes. Free, no ads, no account, and nothing about the player is collected.
More word games
- Hangman — guess the word before the balloons float away.
- Word Search — find the spelling words hidden in the grid.
- Spelling Bee Puzzle — seven letters, one in the middle, a new one every day.