Split first, always: letter sequences
The Short Answer
A letter sequence gives pairs of letters and asks for the pair that comes next. The two positions are separate sequences with their own rules, so the first job is always to split them apart. A gap can only do three things — stay the same, alternate between two sizes, or grow — and writing every gap down before deciding is what makes the pattern obvious rather than clever.
What is a letter sequence question?
Your child is given a run of letter pairs and asked what comes next. Each pair has two positions, and each position is its own sequence with its own rule.
That last sentence is the whole question type. The two tracks are independent: different distances, different directions, in the same question. Every time a child lets one influence the other, a mark goes.
How do you teach the method?
Split first, always. Write the first letters on one line and the second letters on another, before thinking about either.
Write down every gap on both tracks. Not the first two — all of them.
Read the pattern off the page. A gap can only stay the same, alternate between two sizes, or grow.
Apply each track's rule separately to get the next letter, then put the pair back together.
Can you show me a worked example?
Where do pupils lose marks?
Four places, and they are the four worth practising directly.
Forgetting the second track. The top row is solved, the answer is written, and the bottom letter is a guess.
Deciding from two gaps. Two plus-ones look like a constant gap and are just as likely to be the start of a growing one.
The end of the alphabet. A sequence that runs off Z and wraps to A stops a child who has never practised the edges.
Rushing the split to save ten seconds. It saves ten seconds and costs the question.
Try it yourself
Split each pair into two tracks, write down every gap on both, and only then decide what comes next.
- C W, E S, G O, I K — what comes next?
- B D, E G, H J, K M — what comes next?
- Z A, X C, V E, T G — what comes next?
- A M, D N, G O, J P — what comes next?
- K G. The top track runs C, E, G, I — forward two each time. The bottom runs W, S, O, K — back four each time. Two tracks, two rules, opposite directions.
- N P. Both tracks move forward three. When the two tracks happen to share a rule it feels easy, and that is precisely when children stop checking the second one.
- R I. The top runs backwards two — Z, X, V, T. The bottom runs forwards two — A, C, E, G. Backwards sequences catch children who assume the alphabet only goes one way.
- M Q. The top moves forward three, the bottom forward one. Small gaps on one track and large on the other is a common shape, and the small one is easy to misread as no change at all.
How much practice does this type need at home?
Ten minutes, three times a week, for two or three weeks — and the most useful drill is not whole questions but alphabet fluency. Ask for the letter four after S, six before M, three after X. Out loud, in the car, no paper.
Children who are slow at letter sequences are almost never confused about the pattern. They are slow at counting through the alphabet, and that is a much easier thing to fix.
Free: a Verbal Reasoning workbook
Questions across the Verbal Reasoning question types, with the method printed at the top and full answers at the back. One workbook for the whole strand, not a sheet per question type.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do you insist on splitting the pairs before doing anything else?
Because the two tracks are genuinely independent, and whatever the top row is doing tells you nothing whatever about the bottom row. Children who read the pairs as pairs try to find one rule that explains both, which usually does not exist. Splitting first turns one hard problem into two easy ones, and it takes about three seconds.
How many gaps should my child write down before deciding?
All of them, on both tracks. Two gaps of plus one could be a constant gap of one, the start of a growing pattern, or half of an alternating pair. There is no way to tell from two. Once every gap is on the page the pattern is simply there, and no cleverness is required — which is the point, because cleverness is the first thing to go under time pressure.
What happens when a sequence runs off the end of the alphabet?
It wraps round. After Z comes A again, and going backwards from A takes you to Z. This is worth practising deliberately, because a child who has only ever worked in the middle of the alphabet freezes at the edges. Counting on fingers from Z to C is fine and entirely legitimate.
Is it worth writing the alphabet out at the start of the test?
Many children find it helps, and there is nothing to stop them. If your child does it, they should do it once, carefully, at the very start — a miscopied alphabet is worse than none. In practice, the children who need it most are the ones working backwards, so it earns its place.
Sources
- GL Assessment — 11+ familiarisation materials and question type descriptions Published 2025.
- Clever Clogs Academy — our own Year 4 and Year 5 lesson records, Winslow Published September 2025 to July 2026.
We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to GL Assessment or Buckinghamshire Council. Test arrangements change; always check the council's own pages for the current year's dates.
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