Wordle has been sold to the New York Times for a seven-figure sum. Hopefully it remains free to use, but if not I’d like to say goodbye to a special little game, one that did wonders for my son’s education, and for our relationship.

When my eldest son started primary school, I wondered how he’d adapt to the structure of formal education; to learning in prescribed settings rather than the freeform world of discovery that his life had been until that moment.

Not that primary school is all work and no play, of course. But still I wasn’t sure how he would handle this new focus on a more formal type of education.

Thankfully he took to it like a duck to water, and in particular numeracy and literacy elements.

There’s been a few ups and downs, one or two teething problems, but in general, as a parent, I couldn’t been happier with how he’s taken to structured learning.

In fact, within his first week of school he was coming home and talking about phonemes and digraphs, things I — the professional writer — had to look up.

He seemed to instantly delight in the arranging of letters, how they interact with each other, the effect they can have on one another in forming sounds, this relationship between them.

He played with them the same way he’d played with his building blocks, constructing all manner of things, forming ideas, and moulding his new creations.

And into this lexicon-infused environment sailed Wordle, the fun and quick spelling game that has taken the whole world by storm.

By now there’s absolutely no way you haven’t heard of Wordle, so I’ll spare you too much of a background story here.

But if by some miracle the phenomenon has passed you by, it’s essentially a simple word game that gives you five attempts at guessing a hidden five-letter word by revealing whether or not any of the letters in the word you have guessed appear in the answer.

It was created by Josh Wardle, a software engineer for the social media website Reddit, who wanted to come up with a word game that he and his wife could play together after they got interested in crosswords and other puzzles during lockdown.

Like Josh, my son and I had played all manner of other word games over the last few months too, but Wordle seemed to grab my boy’s attention the most.

I’m not sure if it was the simple, clean, and colourful interface that attracted him.

Or perhaps it was the fact that all the words are five letters long, a length he is sometimes able to form, spell, and deconstruct himself. Or the fact that when he isn’t, I can help.

From the first moment I showed Wordle to my boy he was interested in it, not in the solving of the puzzles as such, but rather in seeing how what he had been learning at school could be related to this new canvas.

And we’ve been delighting in sharing in this game each and every day since.

I’m sure Wordle has helped my eldest son with his learning. I’m confident it’s aided his development and understanding of literacy. I know without doubt he’s enjoyed playing it, too.

But for me it has been a delight just as rich: a little ten-minute window each day when my son would revel in teaming up with his dad.

We didn’t always solve the day’s test, but neither of us minded.

That’s not what it was about for us.

Rather, it’s helped my son’s education, and I have no doubt it’s helped our relationship to strengthen too. It made us a team, us against the puzzle.

So thank you Wordle, thank you Josh (though I doubt you’ll ever see this), and if this is the beginning of the end, well, it’s been great.

G R E A T.