Word Sorts

What is it?

• A game to play with students to support development of phonemic awareness and phonics skills.

What should I use it for?

• Teaching students about the common visual elements in words

• Reinforce what students have learned about the alphabetic principle

• Build on knowledge of personally relevant words with spelling patterns

• Can also be used with conventional readers to support decoding skills

What does it look like?

Visual Word Sorts

• Step 1: Select two key words the student knows that have a common spelling pattern ( at - pick).

• Step 2: Make sure student can read the two key words.

• Step 3: Show student a word that has the same spelling pattern as one of the key words.

• Step 4: Ask the student to indicate which key word has the same spelling pattern as the new word. Compare/Contrast the two words.

Auditory Word Sorts

• Word sorts begin to engage the phonological processor when students begin to sort words based on the way they sound prior to checking the visual pattern.

• Step 1: Select two key words the student knows that have a common spelling pattern ( at - pick)

• Step 2: Make sure student can read the two key words.

• Step 3: Tell the student a word that has the same spelling pattern as one of the key words.

• Step 4: Ask the student to indicate which key word has the same spelling pattern as the new word.

• Step 5: Show the student the new word and compare/contrast it with the selected key word to check.

Spelling Word Sorts

• Guiding students to use the selected key word to try to spell the words prior to checking the response visually engages the phonological processor even more deeply.

• Step 1: Select two key words the student knows that have a common spelling pattern ( at - pick)

• Step 2: Make sure student can read the two key words.

• Step 3: Tell the student a word that has the same spelling pattern as one of the key words.

• Step 4: Ask the student to indicate which key word has the same spelling pattern as the new word.

• Step 5: Ask the student to try to use the key word to spell the new word.

• Step 6: Show the student the new word and compare/contrast it with the student’s spelling attempt correcting as necessary.

Compare/Contrast

• Give students cards with three or four key words they can already read written on them (e.g., can, make, nice, play).

• Write a sentence on the board with an underlined word that shares an ending with one of the words the students have on cards.

• The task for the students is to identify which word they have would help them read the underlined word.

Brand Names for Word Sorts