A process for preparing beads of various compositions has been developed. The process involves preparing a reaction mixture of sources of framework elements of a molecular sieve. The reaction mixture can optionally contain molecular sieve seeds. Additional sources of the framework elements are added to give a concentration above the critical supersaturation limit thereby forming beads. Depending on the composition of the reaction mixture and the reaction conditions one can obtain beads which are substantially amorphous, to beads that are substantially crystalline molecular sieve. These beads in turn can be further processed to deposit a molecular sieve layer onto the beads.