What does a child have to do to follow a word ladder in the 11+?

Change one permitted letter at each step while preserving valid intermediate words. It is one of 26 named verbal reasoning skills in the 11+, in the word strand, and this page carries 1 interactive exercise that practises it.

What is the trap in an 11+ follow a word ladder question?

An option that is one letter from the rung you came from can still be two letters from the rung you are heading to, and then it is a dead end. The wrong answers on this skill are built out of that, not out of random numbers, so it is worth naming out loud before your child meets it under time pressure.

What is not part of follow a word ladder in the 11+?

The skill map draws the line here: One letter changes per step. 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.

Which other 11+ skills should we practise alongside follow a word ladder?

The word strand holds 9 skills that are tested together, and the pages next to follow a word ladder are form a compound word, form a derived word and move a letter between words. Each has its own exercise and its own link, and none of them needs an account.

How can my child practise follow a word ladder for free?

Use Cold to Warm, embedded on this page. It is the exercise the skill map attaches to follow a word ladder, 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.

Verbal Reasoning · Word

Follow a word ladder

Change one permitted letter at each step while preserving valid intermediate words.

Free to use and free to share. There is no sign-up, no score, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere.

Practise it now

Climb from COLD to WARM. Change exactly one letter each rung, and every rung must be a real word.

Loading the interactive exercise. Nothing you do here is saved or scored.

A worked example

One question of the kind this skill is tested with, worked all the way through: the reasoning, and what the wrong answers are there to catch.

A rung has to work from both sides

On a word ladder every rung is a real word and exactly one letter changes from one rung to the next. The ladder runs CODE, then a missing rung, then HOME. Which word is the missing rung?

Work one gap through and see why a legal step from below can still be a dead end.

TELL
COME
BOOK
CORE

Answer: COME

How you get there

COME changes the third letter of CODE and then its first letter changes again to give HOME, so both moves are single letters and both rungs are real words. "CORE" is the move worth talking about: it is one letter from CODE and would be a legal step, but it is 2 letters from HOME, so the ladder cannot get out of it in one move. A rung has to be true twice over, once looking back and once looking forward, and checking only the rung you came from is what sends climbers down dead ends.

Why the other answers tempt

An option that is one letter from the rung you came from can still be two letters from the rung you are heading to, and then it is a dead end.

If they are stuck, say this

Write the rung above and the rung below one under the other, then check each option against both of them. A rung must be one letter from each.

Now do it live in Cold to Warm

What this exercise is doing

Cold to Warm

Climb from COLD to WARM. Change exactly one letter each rung, and every rung must be a real word.

A word ladder has two rules working against each other: every rung must be a real word, and only one letter may change at a time. Beginners break the second rule or make nonsense; the way through is to work backwards from the target. Write COLD above WARM and ask which letters the target has that you are missing: W, A, R and M. Now spend the rungs collecting them. COLD to CORD collects the R, CORD to WORD collects the W, WORD to WARD collects the A, and the final change collects the M. WORM works instead of WARD for the same reason, because it collects the M first and leaves the A for last. The test for any move is that it must be true twice over: a real word, and one letter closer to the target. A move that passes only one of those is a dead end.

What to say if they get stuck

Line COLD up under WARM. They share no letters at all, so all four positions have to change before you get there.
Tap a position in the live word first, then pick a letter from the bank. Only one letter may move on each rung.
Start with the third position: swap the L in COLD for an R and you get the word for a length of rope or electrical flex.

Open Cold to Warm on its own page to share it

Related verbal reasoning skills

All verbal reasoning 11+ skills

Questions parents ask about follow a word ladder

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.

: Change one permitted letter at each step while preserving valid intermediate words. It is one of 26 named verbal reasoning skills in the 11+, in the word strand, and this page carries 1 interactive exercise that practises it.
: An option that is one letter from the rung you came from can still be two letters from the rung you are heading to, and then it is a dead end. The wrong answers on this skill are built out of that, not out of random numbers, so it is worth naming out loud before your child meets it under time pressure.
: Point at the next move rather than explaining the whole rule. Write the rung above and the rung below one under the other, then check each option against both of them. A rung must be one letter from each.
: The skill map draws the line here: One letter changes per step. 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 word strand holds 9 skills that are tested together, and the pages next to follow a word ladder are form a compound word, form a derived word and move a letter between words. Each has its own exercise and its own link, and none of them needs an account.
: Use Cold to Warm, embedded on this page. It is the exercise the skill map attaches to follow a word ladder, 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.

Verbal reasoning is a set of question types, not a subject to revise

A free diagnostic works out which of the codes, analogies, word puzzles and logic types are already secure, and which are not.

Start the free 11+ diagnostic