Word Search

Search for the words in the grid...

The word search puzzle is one of the most well-known and established of all puzzles, and is particularly popular with children.

The aim of a word search puzzle is simple: to find all the words that are listed in the word search puzzle grid.

In most puzzles words can be placed diagonally, horizontally or vertically - and also backwards in each of those directions.

The words that are placed diagonally are often the hardest to spot as the eye is more trained to look horizontally and to some extent vertically than to look both down or up and across at once.

One simple strategy with the word search puzzle is to look for the words with unusual letters in first. Usually there will be less 'noise' letters (these are letters that fill up the grid but are not in words themselves) of these uncommon letters, making those words easier to spot.

The simplest strategy is to read across left to right line by line, to find the clues that are placed horizontally. You will need to go slowly to find the words that are placed backwards.

Then scan down each column top to bottom from left to right to find the vertical words - again care to go slowly to find those placed backwards.

This will just leave the diagonal words which you will need your keen eye to find.

If you get really stuck and just cannot find a word, pick out the least common letter in that word. Then go through the puzzle line by line, and find each occurrance of that letter. Then simply look at the letters around that letter and see if they are part of the word or not. This process is methodical and can be slow, but is better than a random search if you just cannot find that one missing word!

Word Search

Author: Dan

About the Author:
More About the Author >>> | My other pages >>>

Page Views: 1309 | Page Ranking: 166
Popular Tags:
word search, word puzzle, childrens puzzle

Last Updated: Aug 15th 2006

Ask Dan a Question >>>

Category: Puzzles and Games [More Categories]

Article Comments / Questions

No comments have been added to this question.
Comment on this Article