Word games that need a letter
Scattergories, Categories, and most “name something beginning with…” games need a letter nobody chose. Rolling a lettered die works, but a wheel handles the awkward ones: drop Q, X and Z if your group finds them unfair, and the wheel redraws with the odds spread across what is left.
In the classroom
A letter wheel is a quick way to pick a phonics sound, a spelling-list letter, or which group goes first when groups are named A to F. Because the list is editable, a teacher can narrow it to the letters actually being taught that week rather than the whole alphabet.
Making the odds match the language
A plain A-to-Z wheel gives Z the same chance as E, which is not how English works. If you want draws that feel more natural, repeat the common letters — a few extra lines of E, A, R, I, O, T give a distribution closer to real word frequency.
For a fair game, leave it uniform. For a writing prompt or a naming exercise, weighting toward common letters produces far more usable results.
Beyond the alphabet
Entries are plain text, so the same wheel does letter pairs, digraphs like CH and SH, syllables, or a set of characters from another script entirely. Anything you can type on its own line becomes an equally likely slice.
Frequently asked questions
Can I get only vowels or only consonants?
Yes — delete the letters you do not want. Anything left on the list is what the wheel draws from.
Can I include letters with accents?
Yes. Entries are plain text, so Ä, Ñ or Ø all work.
Can I avoid getting the same letter twice?
Yes — turn on "Remove the winner after each spin" and each letter is drawn at most once.
Is it suitable for Scattergories?
Yes, and most groups remove Q, X, Y and Z first. Delete those lines and the remaining letters share the circle evenly.