Four word games, one goal: retention

Words they read, games they play, vocabulary they keep.

Every story feeds four daily word games — the kind of puzzles millions of adults play every morning, rebuilt for English learners. Each game recycles the story's vocabulary through a different mental skill: deduction, connection, construction, and recognition. Not exposure — retention.

Think WordBee GeniusIntellect LinkWord Explorer
The 5 daily games

A new challenge, generated automatically, every day.

Think Word

Students race the clock to guess today's vocabulary word, Wordle-style — a new word every day, straight from the story they're reading.

From story to word: The word is always pulled straight from the story currently being read, so every guess is another rep on a word the student has already met in context — not a random flashcard.

Bee Genius

Bee Genius arranges a set of letters drawn from the story into a honeycomb, with one letter locked in the center — every word students build must use that center letter.

From story to word: The letters come straight from the story just read, so every word built is another rep on vocabulary the student has already met in context.

Intellect Link

A Strands-style puzzle where students find hidden groups of related words from their current story.

From story to word: Every word in the grid comes from the same story, so spotting the connections between them reinforces how those words relate to each other — not just what each one means on its own.

Word Explorer

A classic word search built from the story just read — students scan the grid and circle each hidden word as they find it.

From story to word: Every word students find was pulled from the story they just read, so finding it is one more spaced repetition of that vocabulary in its written form.

Quizzes

A quiz auto-runs after every session, with daily practice questions available in between.

Game 1 · Think Word

Guess the hidden word — five letters, limited tries

Students deduce a word from the story in a handful of guesses, with color feedback on every letter: right letter, right place; right letter, wrong place. The daily ritual the whole world knows — now it teaches.

Think Word — attempt 2 of 6

FLOWS
FOREST

Sample gameplay, shown for illustration

Strategy: open with a guess containing common vowels and frequent consonants, then use the color feedback to eliminate and confirm letters systematically — fewer guesses used means a higher score.

Students improve

  • Spelling precision — every guess is spelled letter by letter, and feedback corrects it instantly
  • Letter-pattern intuition: which letters cluster in English, and where
  • Deductive reasoning — narrowing possibilities is thinking in English, under friendly pressure
  • Active recall of story vocabulary, the strongest driver of long-term memory

Schools gain

  • A daily habit with zero teacher prep — the puzzle everyone already wants to play
  • Streaks and completion data that show engagement day by day, class by class
  • Shareable results at the end of each round — the same social hook that made the format popular worldwide
  • The perfect 5-minute lesson opener that gets a class quiet and thinking
Game 2 · Intellect Link

A grid of letters hides several story words at once — but the path to each one can bend. Students connect one letter to the next, moving in any direction including diagonally, tracing a shape rather than scanning a straight line. A small number of hints are available if a word proves stubborn.

Intellect Link — trace the hidden words

FOJKLMXRQVZNYEWGHPUCSDIA
Found words1

Sample gameplay, shown for illustration

Strategy: look for uncommon letters like Q, X, or Z first — they narrow down which hidden word they belong to fastest — then trace outward letter by letter rather than trying to spot the whole word at once. Save hints for whatever still resists you after a real search.

Students improve

  • Spatial and pattern reasoning — tracing a bending path is a different skill from reading left to right
  • Vocabulary recall under ambiguity: you need to know a word exists before you can spot its shape
  • Persistence and systematic search, since guessing rarely beats a methodical letter-by-letter trace

Schools gain

  • A visibly different thinking skill from the other three games — this one rewards spatial reasoning specifically
  • Built-in, capped hints give struggling students a safety net without handing them every answer
  • A genuinely different visual on a leaderboard next to the other games — variety students notice
Game 3 · Bee Genius

Build every word around today's center letter

Bee Genius arranges a set of letters drawn from the story into a honeycomb, with one letter locked in the center — every word students build must use that center letter. The letter count changes from day to day depending on that story's vocabulary, not a fixed number. Short words bank points, longer ones score bigger, and using every letter at once earns the day's top bonus.

Bee Genius — today's letters

EABPOWN
WEAPON✓ all letters!

Sample gameplay, shown for illustration

Strategy: every valid word must include the gold center letter, so start there — then shuffle the outer letters to see new combinations you might have missed, and save your search for the one word using every letter for last.

Students improve

  • Word formation — prefixes, suffixes, and roots become tools, not grammar-book abstractions
  • Productive vocabulary: not just recognising words, but generating them
  • Breadth — the game rewards knowing many words, pushing reading wider

Schools gain

  • Difficulty that adjusts itself automatically — the letter set comes straight from the story, so there's no manual leveling to configure
  • A clean measure of productive vocabulary growth across the term
  • Leaderboard fuel for the daily run and inter-school competition
Game 4 · Word Explorer

Spot the story's words hiding in the grid

The classic word search, with a purpose: every word hidden in the grid comes from the story just read. Students scan a field of letters — horizontally, vertically, diagonally — and circle each one as they find it, locking in its written form.

Word Explorer — find today's words

FORESTCANOPYVXJMKT
FOREST✓ found
CANOPY✓ found
VENTUREsearching…
GROVEnot started

Sample gameplay, shown for illustration

Strategy: sweep row by row first for the easy horizontal finds, then check diagonals — longer or less common words tend to hide there, so save those for once the grid is mostly filled in.

Students improve

  • Instant word-form recognition — seeing a word as a shape, the foundation of reading speed
  • Visual scanning stamina that transfers directly to fluent reading
  • Confidence: an accessible win for beginners that still reinforces the day's vocabulary

Schools gain

  • An entry point every student can succeed at from day one — including A1 beginners
  • Calm, focused practice time that needs no supervision or marking
  • One more spaced repetition of story vocabulary, disguised as play
Why four games

Four skills, one loop: Read → Play → Retain

Deduction

Think Word

Connection

Intellect Link

Construction

Bee Genius

Recognition

Word Explorer

Each game retrieves the same story vocabulary through a different mental pathway — deduction, connection, construction, and recognition — and varied retrieval is what memory science says moves words into long-term memory. Teachers see which words each class retains and which need another round; students just see their streak.

The daily game gets competitive — see the inter-school run

Fresh every day

How the games work

Vocabulary extracted

Each day, iRead pulls the key words from whatever story your class is currently reading.

Games generated fresh

All four games regenerate from that vocabulary automatically — a new challenge every 24 hours, zero setup.

Students play and submit

Students play anytime during the day; each game submits a score once completed.

Rankings update

Class and cross-school standings update as scores come in.

What keeps students coming back

Every word has a journey — and students can see it.

A game clear, a quiz answer, a word typed from memory — every attempt feeds the same real progress record. No hints and it counts double; the same word cleared twice, on two different days, and it locks in as Mastered.

1EncounteredShown in a game or story — not yet cleared.
2GuessedCleared once, hints allowed.
3KnownCleared again, in a different game or session.
4MasteredCleared unaided, from two different sources on two different days.
Achievements

A trophy room worth checking.

Badges unlock automatically as students play — with tiers, so there is always a next one to chase. iRead tracks streaks, hint-free clears, and cross-game mastery without any admin setup.

Word CollectorReach a growing number of words at Guessed or better.
Steel TrapMaster a growing number of words for good.
On a RollReach a reading-streak milestone, day after day.
Triple ThreatClear the same word in three or more different games.
Clean RunString together consecutive no-hint clears.
Master of All TradesClear one word in all four games.
Global competition

Students arrive early to check the leaderboard.

Schools using the same pack compete on a shared leaderboard, refreshed every 24 hours — and matched only against schools at the same CEFR level, so the competition always feels fair.

Cross-school leaderboards

Ranked against other schools running the same pack.

Matched by CEFR level

Competition only happens between schools at the same level.

Updated every 24 hours

A fresh reason to come back and play again tomorrow.

FAQ

Games, in practice

Where do the game words come from?

From the story just read. Word lists are generated automatically per story — zero teacher prep.

Do the games work for complete beginners?

Yes. Word Explorer gives A1 students an accessible daily win, and every game scales its word pool to the pack's CEFR level.

Can teachers see results per game?

Yes — retention per word, per game, per class. You'll know if a class recognises a word but can't yet produce it, and which game to replay.

How often do the games change?

Every 24 hours. All four games regenerate automatically from whatever story the class is currently reading — no teacher setup required.

Want to see it played live?

We'll show your team the games in a real demo.

Book a school demo and we'll play a full round of all five games with your team.