Random Letter Generator

Spin the wheel and it lands on one of the 26 letters, each with exactly the same chance. Switch to vowels only or consonants only, type the letters you want left off, and turn on Don't repeat to work through the alphabet without a letter coming up twice.

How to pick a random letter

1. Choose the letter set under Letters: A–Z for the full alphabet, Vowels for A E I O U, or Consonants for the other 21.
2. Type any letters to leave off into Exclude letters. They vanish from the wheel as you type; a typical game night entry is Q X Z.
3. Spin by clicking the wheel, pressing the Spin button, or hitting Ctrl + Enter. The letter appears in the result window.
4. Turn on Don't repeat what's been drawn to remove each letter after it is spun. The Drawn line shows the sequence; Clear puts them all back.
5. Switch off Uppercase if you want lowercase letters on the wheel and in the result, for example for early readers.

The result window shows the letter large, and the Results tab keeps every letter from this session in order so you can copy them as a list. Sound, confetti, spin time and full screen all work the same as on the main wheel, and the choice of letter set and exclusions stays as you left it until you reload the page. Nothing is uploaded; the wheel runs entirely in your browser.

Letter games to play with the wheel

A random letter generator earns its place at the table because arguing over who picks the letter is the slowest part of most word games. Spin, and the letter is nobody's fault. Each game below works with the wheel; the code next to it is the set of letters players usually type into Exclude letters first, because almost nothing starts with them and the round stalls.

Scattergories is the classic case. Its own die leaves out Q, U, V, X, Y and Z for exactly this reason, so putting those six in the Exclude box gives you the same twenty letters the boxed game uses. For Pictionary and charades a lighter touch is enough; Q, X and Z are the ones that empty the room of ideas. An alphabet brainstorm, where the class shouts animals or countries starting with the letter, usually only needs X removed.

Word chains and phonics drills want the whole alphabet, because the point is to meet every letter. For those, turn on Don't repeat instead of excluding anything, and the wheel will walk through all 26 before you need to press Clear.

Exclude letters, or spin vowels and consonants only

Exclude letters takes any string: type QXZ, Q X Z or q, x, z and the three letters leave the wheel. Anything that is not a letter is ignored, and the box is not case-sensitive. Each exclusion removes one slice, so with Q, X and Z gone the remaining 23 letters have one chance in 23 each; the wheel never leaves a gap or gives an excluded letter's share to its neighbour.

The Letters choice sits above exclusions. Vowels gives a five-slice wheel of A, E, I, O and U, useful for spelling patterns and for board games where a vowel has to be bought. Consonants gives the other 21, which is what most starting-letter games really want anyway. Exclusions still apply on top, so Consonants plus Q X Z in the box is an 18-letter wheel.

Exclusions are also the way to turn the wheel into a smaller custom alphabet without leaving this page. For a spelling test on the letters a child has learned so far, type every letter they have not met yet into the box and the wheel shrinks to the ones they know. For a game where a letter has already been used by another team, add it to the box and it is out for the rest of the round; the Results tab keeps a record of what was spun if anyone disputes it.

Y counts as a consonant here. If your lesson treats it as a vowel, spin Vowels and add a second spin from a wheel of Consonants when Y comes up, or simply exclude Y from the consonant wheel when it would confuse things.

Do not repeat: working through the alphabet

Turn on Don't repeat what's been drawn and each letter the wheel stops on is taken off the wheel. The Drawn line under the options lists them in order, the wheel redraws one slice narrower after every spin, and the odds for the letters still on it rise accordingly. When only one letter is left the wheel stops and asks for at least two entries; that last letter is the one you have not had.

Each spin still has even odds among the letters that remain, so a letter that has not come up yet is never "due"; it simply becomes a little more likely as the wheel shrinks. This is the setting for anything that should cover the alphabet exactly once: a 26-day writing challenge, a display board where each child owns a letter, an alphabet chain, or a revision round where every letter gets a question. Press Clear next to the Drawn list to start again with the full set.

The same no-repeat behaviour is on the random number wheel, which is the better choice when you need a sequence of numbers rather than letters, for example bingo calls or a page number to read from.

A letter generator for teaching

For early readers, switch off Uppercase and the wheel shows lowercase letters, which is how children meet print first. Spin Vowels only to practise short vowel sounds, or Consonants only for initial sounds, and ask for the sound and three words that start with it. Because every letter has an equal slice, children see rare letters as often as common ones, which is exactly what a phonics drill wants and a book does not provide.

For older classes, the wheel is a fair way to assign starting letters for creative writing, acrostics, vocabulary hunts and "find a country beginning with" geography rounds. Put it in Full screen on the board, spin once, and the whole class works from the same letter. The spinner wheel for the classroom page has ten routines like this, several of which use this letter wheel.

Outside the classroom the same wheel settles the small choices that stall a group: the initial letter for a team name, the letter a round of "I packed my suitcase" has to start with, which letter of the register gets the free pass today, or the starting letter for a scavenger hunt. One spin each, no discussion, and the Results tab shows what came up if someone joins late.

The letter wheel is fixed to the Latin alphabet A to Z. For letters, syllables or symbols from another script, or for a custom set such as only the letters on a child's spelling list, type them into the main wheel spinner one per line and the wheel treats each line as a slice.