What does a child have to do to move a letter between words in the 11+?

Move one supplied letter from one word to another so both results are valid 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+ move a letter between words question?

An option that is obviously a real word still fails if the letter it needs would wreck the word it came from. 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 move a letter between words in the 11+?

The skill map draws the line here: Exactly one existing letter moves; no insertion, deletion, or substitution. 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 move a letter between words?

The word strand holds 9 skills that are tested together, and the pages next to move a letter between words are identify an impossible word formation, solve an anagram in context and apply a word transformation rule. Each has its own exercise and its own link, and none of them needs an account.

How can my child practise move a letter between words for free?

Use Move a Letter Between Words, embedded on this page. It is the exercise the skill map attaches to move a letter between words, 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

Move a letter between words

Move one supplied letter from one word to another so both results are valid 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

Take one letter out of CART and put it into GAIN so that both are still real words. The other letters stay in the order they are already in.

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.

Moving one letter and leaving two real words

Take exactly one letter out of "place" and put it into "sea". Both words must still be real words. What does "sea" become?

Work one move through and see why both words have to be checked, not just the one you build.

flame
plant
seal
grain

Answer: seal

How you get there

Moving the letter "l" out of "place" leaves "pace", which is still a real word, and dropping it into "sea" makes "seal". Both halves have to work, and that is what rules the other options out: none of them can be reached from "sea" by adding a single letter at all. So check the word you take FROM as carefully as the word you give to.

Why the other answers tempt

An option that is obviously a real word still fails if the letter it needs would wreck the word it came from.

If they are stuck, say this

Try taking each letter out of the first word in turn. Most of them leave a jumble, and only one leaves a real word behind.

Now do it live in Move a Letter Between Words

What this exercise is doing

Move a Letter Between Words

Take one letter out of CART and put it into GAIN so that both are still real words. The other letters stay in the order they are already in.

This kind of question is two tests at once, and the trick is to do them in the right order. Start with the word that is losing a letter, because that side has far fewer possibilities: hide each letter of CART in turn and read what is left. Only the third letter works, because taking the R away leaves CAT. Now carry that R across and try it in every gap in GAIN, not just the end. It goes inside GAIN to make GRAIN. Children lose marks on these by testing the receiving word first, where a letter can go in five or six places, instead of the donating word, where it can only go in four. Do the small search before the big one.

What to say if they get stuck

Work on CART first. Cover up one letter at a time and read what is left. Most of the letters leave rubbish behind, and only a few leave a word.
A letter can join GAIN anywhere, not just on the end. Try it at the front, between each pair of letters, and last of all on the end.
The move only counts if it is true twice over. CART has to survive losing the letter AND GAIN has to survive gaining it.

Open Move a Letter Between Words on its own page to share it

Related verbal reasoning skills

All verbal reasoning 11+ skills

Questions parents ask about move a letter between words

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.

: Move one supplied letter from one word to another so both results are valid 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 obviously a real word still fails if the letter it needs would wreck the word it came from. 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. Try taking each letter out of the first word in turn. Most of them leave a jumble, and only one leaves a real word behind.
: The skill map draws the line here: Exactly one existing letter moves; no insertion, deletion, or substitution. 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 move a letter between words are identify an impossible word formation, solve an anagram in context and apply a word transformation rule. Each has its own exercise and its own link, and none of them needs an account.
: Use Move a Letter Between Words, embedded on this page. It is the exercise the skill map attaches to move a letter between words, 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