It’s an early morning, and
there’s a break in school. It’s late
afternoon, and maybe you have a
little bit of free time before your
practice begins. It’s nearly 11
p.m. and you remember you must
keep your streak going. You open
your phone for a minute, and type
“Wordle” into a browser of your
choice. The free web game
known as Wordle appears.

Created in 2013, the game
was revived in 2022 by Josh
Wardle when his development
partner grew obsessed with cross
words and spelling bees.

Recently, the game was pur-
chased by The New York

Times for over one million dol-
lars, but remains free to play for

the time being. You click the link

and five rows of five boxes ap-
pear along your screen. Then you

must pick a word to start the ven-
ture, although the question lin-
gers, which word is the best to

pick first? To answer the question

we must first look at the funda-
mentals of the English language.

First and foremost, English
words can be broken down into
consonants and vowels. Vowels
being the letters of A, E, I, O, U,
and sometimes Y, and consonants
being every other letter.
Various techniques include
finding words with common
spelling or eliminating popular
vowels.
An example of the second
technique is using a word such as
miaou – which consists of four
vowels being AIOU. This works
in tangent with AEIOU, listed in
order from most common in a

word to least common in five-
letter words overall.

After using a word like
“miaou” or something akin with
at least three vowels, one can

move into the second row of box-
es and test a second word with

the remaining vowels accompa-
nied by various consonants.

An example of the first tech-
nique uses common word analy-
sis, which incorporates using a

wheel of forty words. On this

topic, Milford High School Eng-
lish teacher Mr. Flynn says: “I

always use the word stern, the

starting letters S and T are com-
monly used to start words. Alt-
hough S more so than T, because

the Wordle program doesn’t pick
words with plurals.”

Mr. Flynn’s logic is sound;
more so because it applies both
techniques.
A further analysis of Mr.
Flynn’s word shows E and R, E
being the second most common
vowel out of all five-letter words

and R being one of the most com-
mon consonants to end a word.

The final letter “n”, is a great
letter. Even though it is the ninth

most common letter in a five let-
ter word it is still a good option.

In an interview with
Maureen Brandon, a 2nd grade
teacher at Wixom Elementary,
she admits to using the Wheel of

Fortune technique. “I grew up
playing Wheel of Fortune with
my dad. We always used the
same words and eight times out
of ten we’d get it right using the
word “learn.” It mostly works
because it includes E and A, as
well as a R.” This word more
closely follows the vowel strategy
featuring A and E as the star
vowels.
In short, the best first Wordle

word would be learn. Learn con-
taining the two most common

vowels in 5 letter words. As well
as it containing R and L, two very
common consonants.