Every letter moved the same amount: 3 steps forwards around the alphabet. That is why even one of the example cards is enough to give the whole secret away - once you know K → N, every other letter follows. To code a word you just repeat that one turn on each letter, and when you run off the end of the alphabet you wrap back round to the start, which is exactly what the wheel does for you.
What to say if they get stuck
Turn the outer ring until KIT lines up with NLW. The example cards glow when it is right.
Look at just one letter: K became N. How many steps around the alphabet is that?
Stops at Z instead of applying the stated alphabet wrap-around.
This is the wrong answer 11+ papers are built to offer, so it is worth watching for directly: a child who does this will look confident and still lose the mark. If it keeps happening on apply a letter shift, the fix is the misunderstanding rather than more questions.
Where apply a letter shift sits in the 11+
The 11+ does not test these skills in isolation, and practising one in the wrong order wastes the practice. These are the skills the curriculum map connects this one to.
Both transform letters by alphabet position, but use different invariants.
How apply a letter shift differs from the skills beside it
The same exercise practises several skills, and telling them apart is often the difficulty rather than the exercise itself. On this page the skill is: apply one positional alphabet shift, including wrap-around when stated, and it stops where excludes alternating multi-rule sequences.
Answered from what the skill map records about this skill, not from a template. Every answer here is on the page, and the same questions are the page's FAQ structured data.
Apply one positional alphabet shift, including wrap-around when stated. It is one of 26 named verbal reasoning skills in the 11+, in the code strand, and this page carries 1 interactive exercise that practises it.
The skill map puts locate an alphabet position first. Positional shifts depend on stable letter-position translation. If apply a letter shift keeps going wrong, that is the thing to check before doing more of this one.
There is a specific mistake recorded against this skill: stops at Z instead of applying the stated alphabet wrap-around. 11+ papers are written to offer exactly that answer, so a child can be confident and still lose the mark. When it keeps happening, the fix is the misunderstanding rather than more questions.
Point at the next move rather than explaining the whole rule. Count from R to X in the alphabet - note which way it goes - then make exactly that jump from every letter of LION.
The skill map draws the line here: Excludes alternating multi-rule sequences. A question past that line is testing a different named verbal reasoning skill, which is worth knowing before you spend a week practising the wrong one.
The skill map connects it to follow alternating code rules and apply mirrored alphabet pairing. The alternating-rule task composes repeated single-rule applications. Both transform letters by alphabet position, but use different invariants. Each of those has its own page here.
Use Code Wheel, embedded on this page. It is the exercise the skill map attaches to apply a letter shift, it runs in the browser with no account to make, nothing is scored, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. It also has its own link, so you can send it to a child without sending them anywhere else first.
Apply a letter shift rests on something else being secure first
This skill depends on locate an alphabet position. A free diagnostic checks those alongside every other verbal reasoning skill, so you find out whether the problem is here or underneath it.
