Shuffle The Board Regularly
The fact that the New York Times’ Spelling Bee has a very simple user interface and layout makes things much easier for a solver. But even then because it’s unlabelled, many players tend to ignore the reshuffle button. The reshuffle button is placed between the button to delete letters from a player’s guess and the button to submit the guess.
It’s arguably one of the more important tools in the solver’s arsenal as the reshuffle button simply re-shuffles the order of the letters. It doesn’t give a player new letters but changes their position and that often helps solvers figure out new words. That’s because it helps, sometimes, to look at a problem from a different angle or the options from a different position. It also helps spark something in a player’s brain which almost always helps create a new word. So use the shuffle button, a lot.
Improve Your Vocabulary
Arguably the easiest way to improve one’s performance in any word game is to improve their vocabulary which on its own is easier said than done. That’s because it usually takes time and effort to do that although there are ways for a player to speed-run that. Playing word games usually helps - especially games like Scrabble, boggle, Quordle, and the like as they force a player to think and unlock a new method or a word.
Crosswords also help immensely in this regard as the clues provide word associations for players which builds new pathways for the brain to remember new words or reinforce the older ones. Yet again, that only comes with time and a lot of practise, which means being consistent.
Look For Prefixes And Suffixes
While every strategy is key, looking for prefixes and suffixes is a valuable strategy to keep in mind going into the Spelling Bee’s daily puzzle. That especially includes common options like re, un, in, and more or suffixes like ing, ed, er, est, and a few others. This can not just improve a player’s word list but it also gives them so many more options going into a daily puzzle.
For example, if DITENU is the list of letters then both the words Tied and United will be a part of the word list and can be found within the blink of an eye. That also applies to play, which could potentially turn into replay, playing, and even played, as they could all be valid options. That does depend upon the list of words though, so compare, think, and experiment to get closer to Queen Bee.
Check Previous Games
This strategy helps players in two ways; the first is that it allows solvers to see the solved list of words and identify words that they might have missed out on. It makes for a nice learning tool for many players, especially newcomers and more importantly, certain obscure words can be repeated. Thus looking back at previous puzzles allows players to figure out and remember certain words that could potentially re-appear.
The second way is to help players learn from their mistakes especially since hindsight is 20/20 and it allows solvers to figure out where they went wrong and how they can improve. Of course, this might be more useful for Wordle or Quordle but that doesn’t mean it’s not just as applicable for Spelling Bee.
Players can also check out free online Spelling Bee Solvers to see which words can be created from the given list of letters. Keeping these in mind will help them tackle future Spelling Bee games.
Watch for Weird Plurals
Many players seem to believe that just because the letter S is never included in the puzzles, it means that there are no plural words present. That is the furthest thing from the truth as thanks to the English language being vast and weird, the game does feature weird plurals. Those include words like teeth, children, celli, women, and more. So, remember to not overlook these plurals and keep them in mind every day.
Take A Break Once In A While
Sometimes, a puzzle can become too frustrating and players tend to get tunnel vision which only makes things worse for them, especially if they’re closing in on an achievement. That also tends to happen in daily games like Spelling Bee but unlike most daily games, Spelling Bee doesn’t have a timer outside the daily reset. That means players are given the chance to put the game away to take a break, refresh their minds, and return in better shape to tackle the puzzle.
This also helps give players a fresh perspective on the game and may even help them figure out words or combinations they couldn’t hit upon earlier.
