A cryptogram is an easy way to hide a message by substituting its letters for other letters. The important thing to remember is that, even though the new alphabet is scrambled, it is consistent — that is, if you determine that the letter A is represented by the letter H, then all the Hs in the puzzle are hiding As.
To make a cryptogram, you can scramble the alphabet any way you want. For example:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
S O Q B Z J M V P F L U Y H A D W I C R G N K T E X
In this alphabet, A corresponds to S, B corresponds to O, and so on.
So to encode the message “I HAVE A DOG,” first you need to find the letter that corresponds to I. I is the ninth letter of the alphabet, and the ninth letter of our new alphabet is P. H is the eighth letter of the alphabet, and the new eighth letter is V. Are you with me so far?
When you’re done, the phrase “I HAVE A DOG” looks like this: “P VSNZ S BAM.”
See how the two As in “have” and “a” are both represented by the letter S in the finished cryptogram? The pattern of letters stays the same, even though the letters have changed. That’s the key to solving cryptograms!
Now you’re ready for the hard part: solving cryptograms when you don’t know what the scrambled alphabet looks like. It can be hard at first, but here are some tricks that will help you get started.
The first thing you should do is look for letters that stand by themselves. There are only two one-letter words in the English language: I and a. See how P and S are both standing alone in the cryptogram above? Even if you didn’t know the new alphabet, you could see that those words are both only one letter long. You would know that those letters must stand for I and A, in some order.
There are lots of two-letter words, such as at, be, is, it, on, so, and to. You might have to try a few different possibilities to find the right matches, but don’t be afraid to make mistakes! As you start testing letters, can you see any three-letter words emerging? If so, you can try filling in new letters — for example, if you wind up with an E at the end of a three-letter word, you might make a guess that the word is the, and now you can add in your guesses for T and H.
The is one of the most common three-letter words, along with and. Guess what? And starts with A, which is one of the letters that can stand by itself. If you see one of those standalone letters at the start of a three-letter word, you can make a good guess that it’s an A.
It may be confusing at first, but with some practice, you’ll be able to guess some words based on the letter patterns that you see. The more words you can figure out, the more letters you’ll be able to plug in, and you’ll have the answer before you know it!