Word ladders are named as such because of the way the game is played. Two words fall on opposite ends of a vertical plane with a series of tiers separating them. This layout closely resembles a ladder which you climb up or down with each word you create. With each turn, you climb up or down a rung on the ladder.
The goal of a word ladder is to climb from the bottom rung, which has your first word, to the top rung containing your last word. This might seem easy. However, you are only allowed to change one letter at a time to create a new word. This means that word No. 2 is one letter different from word No. 1. Word No. 3 is one letter different from word No. 2 and so on up the ladder. There are usually a minimum of four rungs included in a word ladder. The number of rungs determines how many turns a player gets to create the final word on the top rung.
A good way to approach a word ladder is by first locating the vowels in the first and last words. Only being able to change one letter at a time makes vowel movement the hardest part of the game. This challenge makes the game a more effective learning experience.
Word ladders were invented by English author Lewis Carroll in 1877. The game was initially called "word-link," which Carroll described in his diary as a two-player game. The games, with solutions, were published in Vanity Fair in 1879 and called doublets.
A typical word ladder will start with one word such as "cold" on the bottom rung and "warm" on the top rung. These words can be unrelated as long as they include the same number of letters. The player then will change only one letter, creating a new word such as "cord." This is the word on the second rung. A third turn will create a new word such as "card." There are only five rungs on this word ladder, making the fourth turn the final chance for a player to create a word that is only one letter off from the final word, or "warm." In a winning game, a player could play the word "ward," which is only one letter away from "warm."