The Spelling Bee puzzle game for the New York Times app rewards you with points if you manage to keep a victory streak going with different strategies. This game gives you seven letters to pair together to form different words. Once you guess one word correctly, you gain points that can build exponentially as you discover new words and find the right spelling for them as well.
Similar to all the words used in Wordle, you can spell many possible words using the limited letters provided. Typically, one vowel will be surrounded by six consonants that form a pool of letters you can use to spell the word. The words depend on your creativity, making it harder to for difficulty once you the first few words that are the easiest to spell.
10 Wordle Strategies To Keep Your Streak Alive
With six guesses and thousands of possible daily words, keeping a Wordle streak alive can be tricky. Here are some strategies players can follow.
8 Shuffle Your Letters Often
See Things From a New Perspective
The central "honeycomb" pattern housing all your words in Spelling Bee can be shuffled around when you press the input that looks like a refresh button at the bottom of your screen. While this won't change the position of the center vowel, all the consonants available will shift positions immediately. This shift in perspective might help you see new patterns, identify the letter you need more easily, or simply let you readjust.
This feature can be used however many times you want, so spam the button when you're lost thinking about what Spelling Bee words could be formed. The constant motion of your letters might spur an idea that ends up helping find a solution and continue your winning streak. Similar to strategies for the Mini crossword puzzles, keeping an active mind is usually the key to continued success.
7 Different Prefixes And Suffixes
Words Sometimes Start and End the Same
To get the highest rankings in Spelling Bee, you need to be aware of how certain words are commonly formed. Prefixes like "Re-" or "Sub-" could get you started on a word, letting you know how it begins and therefore a good clue on how a word ends. Suffixes work in the same way by giving you a way to think about the ending of a word first, allowing you to work backward to find the puzzle's solution.
According to the above video by YouTube creator Puzzling Games, the more words you find from the honeycomb of letters, the better your rank can improve as you find new phrases out of the limited vowel and consonants.
Many of the words in a Spelling Bee puzzle will end with "-ed" or "-ing," so suffixes may be parts of a word worth considering more than prefixes. However, both are equally important to keep in mind when trying to keep your streak going. As words become longer and harder to form using available letters, this grammatical strategy will only become more and more important to get the right answer.
6 Start With Shorter Words
Build Your Streak Without Risks
The best way to start a game of Spelling Bee is to get as many short words put together from the available letters as possible. Not only will this start up your streak early, but it will also knock out the most obvious ways to combine letters from what you initially see. The words formed look different for every player since some people can see combinations that others might not be able to notice at first.
Four-letter words are the easiest to make at the start, especially from the letters provided in Spelling Bee. However, if you feel more comfortable making long words before the shorter ones, go ahead and do whatever feels right with what patterns you see. There are no right answers for this game since you are only limited by your thought process concerning words being created.
5 Recognize Certain Letter Patterns
Long Words Share Common Connections
The patterns of your letters are hard to determine after you've run out of short words, but different players will see different patterns as they try to make more ideas in Spelling Bee. Various studies have shown that people recognize patterns in threes, so try to take three letters out of the honeycomb and see how they might fit together. The more unique words you make, the longer your streak will last.
The tips and tricks for Connections, another game in the New York Times mobile app, can give you great knowledge for how similar words that you may form during a Spelling Bee game compare to each other.
Compound words that don't use the center vowel are worth investigating for many unorthodox patterns in Spelling Bee games. Sometimes, as you can see in a video by YouTube creator VlogzbyRandyJ, a pattern might appear using the consonants first before you even consider using the single vowel. Recognizing every connection shared by each letter in small pairings will help form longer words.
4 Use Letters More Than Once
Don't Limit Your Options Accidentally
One of the most common mistakes in Spelling Bee games is that players think each letter can only be used once. This is not the case since each letter can be used as many times as you want when you're trying to form a single word. Not every game provided by the New York Times mobile app allows this, so it may not be clear as you get your honeycomb of letters at the start of a game.
More points are received quickly when you repeat letters into multiple words. For example, if you have the vowel "E," you can make a variety of words like "TEEN" or "SEEN" that use the letter more than once in different phrases. The expanded opportunities you'll have to make words through using letters repeatedly will give you a chance to continue your streak for far longer than you may have thought possible.
3 Mentally Experiment With Each Letter
Take Guesses Without Entering Anything
At some point, you're going to run into a wall and run out of ideas for which word to form next in Spelling Bee. This inevitable obstacle is the hardest point for those looking to continue their streak, as only one false word formed will end your point multiplier within the game. Similar to Wordle's various word choices, thinking outside the box can help you overcome any mental block preventing you from progressing further.
You can write down the letters available in the honeycomb on a separate source to experiment with various letters without actually inputting anything into the game. This prevents you from accidentally making a mistake and ending your streak prematurely in Spelling Bee. There are no rules against doing this, so use every resource available to you, such as an online Thesaurus or Dictionary to help you out.
2 Watch Out For Unusual Plural Words
Don't Be Tricked Into Singular Phrases
One of the ways the Spelling Bee game tricks you is by making you think you can't form plural versions of words. There are no "S" letters ever provided by the honeycomb, which is to specifically prevent you from putting an "S" onto the end of basic words to form a plural. However, not every plural word needs that letter to be made, so don't think you are always limited due to this feature.
One common example of an unusual plural word would be "TEETH" as a version of "TOOTH" or "FEET" instead of "FOOT." These patterns are what you should be considering when thinking about which plural words to form throughout a game. As you may be able to see in a YouTube video by Tom Henry - data science with R, certain coding tricks can be used to dive into every possibility for words in Spelling Bee, plurals or not.
1 Take Breaks When You Need To
Keep Your Mind Fresh
Do not stay on any game for too long, as the jumbling of words in your head will inevitably cause you to mess up at some point and ruin your streak. Take multiple breaks to rest, relax, and subconsciously think about the letters provided to you in Spelling Bee. Many studies claim that the best ideas or revelations happen when you aren't actively giving thought to the topic you want to address.
Sometimes just staring at the letters won't be enough to magically form a word you haven't already put together yet. The perception of each Spelling Bee game takes time and benefits from you using multiple resources to tackle the problem rather than take a shot in the dark and end your streak. You never know when the inspiration of a word you never considered will strike, so be patient as you play or rest.
Learn from mistakes if you fail at the game at any point. Not everyone is going to max out their rank from an incredible streak on their first attempt, so take your time to understand your errors before jumping into a new game. The best strategy for keeping your streak alive in Spelling Bee for the New York Times mobile game is to not rush your efforts recklessly.
Source: Puzzling Games/YouTube, VlogzbyRandyJ/YouTube, Tom Henry - data science with R/YouTube