How to Organize Your Picture Sorts

Having 72 sets of picture sorts and 6 copies of each, I thought long and hard about how I would organize them.  If you are wondering why I would have so many, my last blog post , "Why You Need Picture Sorts" may be of interest to you.  Once I identify my students' particular phonological needs, I create groups or pull them individually for RTI activities.  Picture sorts are not only a great way to introduce and practice sounds, but they also can be an important intervention in which teachers can target student’s specific letter or sound weaknesses.  

How Pinteresting!

Organizing picture sorts was vital because they have become such an integral part of my teaching and interventions.  One day I was casually Pinteresting (I know that's not a word, but we seem to be adding -ing to everything now, ie: googling), and I found my solution!  I saw a picture in which duct tape was put on the bottom of freezer bags and holes punched through them.  Perfect!  I copy each sort on 6 different colors (so kids don’t mix their set up when I am pulling a small group to work on the same skill), put them in a freezer bag, and bind them in a binder.  I have four binders: Consonants, blends and digraphs, short vowels and long vowels. It was a lot of time creating my own picture sorts, copying, and cutting.  You can see why I wanted to have a permanent system. Once the system is set up you are good for years to come.

In each bag, I have six sorts on six different colors.  That way, when I am working with a small group, each student knows which picture goes with which set.  

But that wasn't enough!

  

In case a picture turned up in the lost and found, I wanted to know what set it was missing from.  So I created my own sorts that were double-sided and had the title of the set it was from.  Then I printed all of the sorts out double sided and voila!: The perfect system that I don't have to recreate for years to come.  I even used the duct tape to label the outside of the binder for a cutesy-matching the duct tape inside.  

   

If I wanted (which I don't, but some people might), I could create a self checking center by highlighting the answer on the back.

If you are interested in obtaining picture sorts, you can download some free samples here:

Consonant Blend Picture Sort

Blends and Digraphs Picture Sort

    Short Vowel Picture Sort

    Long Vowel Picture Sort

If you are interested in purchasing 72 sets of picture sorts that cover all of the levels, you can find them here: 

Picture Sorting Center Bundle 72 sets of Literacy Centers/ RTI Interventions

We have already begun our year and it is off to a good start.  I wish you the best in your beginning of the year as well!  Thanks for stopping by!

Anna

Why You Need Picture Sorts

Picture sorts are a valuable tool in teaching beginning reading.  To start with, students are actively engaged in manipulating pictures during which, they are thinking about sounds and feeling for them in their mouths.  The more students become fluent in identifying how and where the sound is made in their mouth, the more fluent their knowledge of letters and sounds becomes. Picture sorts can be a valuable tool in whole group instruction (introduction), small group instruction (reinforcement/remediation), and individual instruction that targets a specific sound based on assessment.

Which Picture Sorts to Use

When introducing sounds, you can simply find a picture sort that matches the sound you are teaching.  However, picture sorts are not only a great way to introduce and practice sounds, but they also can be an important intervention in which teachers can target student’s specific letter or sound weaknesses.   Look at the assessment below.

The test is a 25 word list that has a variety of short vowels, beginning and ending blends and digraphs.  This test comes from Kathy Ganske's Word Journeys.  You can make your own test, just have a variety of words with these features. 

In the example, you can see that each time the student is asked to spell the sound of short u, he/she writes an o (drum, bump, much, mud) and also the opposite, when asked to spell the sound of o, writes u (chop).  In one word, the student uses both (rub).   This student clearly needs to become fluent in listening and identifying short o vs. short u.   That is when you pull out your O vs. U picture sorts and have the students work on this.   

What else could this student work on?  How about sorting pictures with /s/ vs. /sl/?  or /d/ vs. /dr/?  Also, when spelling grab, the student used an o.  Perhaps that gr blend was difficult and the student reverted back to an old confusion and could use some practice with that vowel combination. 

Drive-by PD

I created this poster to hang in the workroom of our school, so that teachers could see how to notice and use picture sorts.  I call it my Drive-by PD, because teachers just look at it in the workroom while they make copies.  Just like kids learn from pretty anchor charts, adults can too.  I wish all the PD's I had to attend were nothing but attractive anchor charts! 

The Assessments

You can use Kathy Ganske's assessments found in Word Journeys, which has a 25 word test for each stage of spelling, or I have made my own assessments with a variety of short vowels, blends and digraphs.  I also made an ending blend assessment for certain students who, every time they were presented with a word that contained a difficult ending blend, they would revert back to their short vowel mistakes that they had mastered in easier words! This informed me that they needed more practice solidifying their knowledge of certain short vowels and practice feeling for the short vowel in the presence of blends and digraphs.  This is why speech is related so much to beginning reading. 

Next Blog:  How to Organize Your Picture Sorts

   

If you are interested in obtaining picture sorts, you can download some free samples here:

Beginning Consonant Picture Sort

Consonant Blends Picture Sort

Short Vowel Picture Sort

Long Vowel Picture Sort

Download them here:

Consonant Blend Picture Sort

Blends and Digraphs Picture Sort

Short Vowel Picture Sort

Long Vowel Picture Sort

If you are interested in purchasing 72 sets of picture sorts that cover all of the levels, you can find them here: 

Picture Sorting Center Bundle 72 sets of Literacy Centers/ RTI Interventions

Thanks for stopping by!

Anna Sanders

Training Students to See Long Vowel Patterns: 2 Free Phonics PowerPoints with Interactive Activities

 Welcome to my annual blog post!  Just kidding.........Here are my latest freebies, products, and thoughts....

   I am always looking for ways to move students from the sound level to the pattern level and to REALLY understand the difference.  I don't know if any of you are torn between "discovery" during word study and "direct" teaching.  I certainly know that I am.  Since I am not the regular classroom teacher, I sometimes feel I can't afford the luxury of guiding students to be independently noticing things.   I am the quick in and out teacher who is supposed to come up with something fabulous.  I do know that there is nothing more powerful than a student coming up with a "rule" because they own it when they do that.  But there have been times that I am not sure I can lead them to discovering things in such a short time.   I go back and forth. 

    Because I push in to do a quick word study lesson, I designed the following long vowel PowerPoints to do several things.

First, I wanted to train students to distinguish between long and short vowels.  So, the first PowerPoint is solely designed to do this.  Pictures fly in and the students hold up signs that read "Short" and "Long" before the answer is revealed.

However,  if it seems like too much work to hot glue short and long onto sticks  (I actually ended up using tongue depressors), then you can use them as "pinch" cards.  Students have a piece of paper in front of them and they pinch the answer.   I just knew I would be using them for each vowel and they were bright and pretty and probably more fun for kids to feel like they were voting. On a different day, I would have picked the easier way.

In the second PowerPoint, students are given a sheet with patterns in columns.  As the picture flies in, they predict which pattern the picture will have by pointing at the column.  Then, the pattern flies in and the student writes the word under the correct column.  Then the rest of the word flies in and students check the whole word.  This continues for 30 pictures.

I lead them to understand that if they hear a short sound, they use one vowel.  If they hear a long sound, they pick a pattern.  Here is the anchor chart I use:

(You can get this anchor chart in the sample file, which is a FULL Long A set, including 2 PPTs, the writing sort and the Long A story.)  

Finally,  I got creative.  I wanted to connect the spelling to reading.  I wanted to emphasize to students that spelling can help them in reading and to have them practice looking for the patterns in their reading.  So each long vowel PowerPoint has a story connected to it.  Here is the long A story.  It is rather difficult to make up a story using spelling words.  I remember the agony we used to go through when one of my son's teachers required this weekly.  So I did it one last time!

The kids have so much fun using highlighters!  It is amazing to see kids get so excited to do this reading activity! 

To get the FULL Long A set click here:

Free Phonics PowerPoints Short A vs. Long A

To get the Long Vowel PowerPoint Bundle, click here:

Long Vowel Phonics PowerPoint Bundle

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great rest of the year!

Anna

Rhyming Picture Sort Center--Response to Intervention Activity

Hello Fellow Teachers,

I hope your year is going well and you are finding time to enjoy the holiday season.  I am not one of those amazing people who have their Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving, so I am finding time here and there to shop. Although my outside lights and decorations have been out since last week, we have not gotten our Christmas tree up yet.  But today is the day!

Before I head out, I wanted to hurry up and post.  My blog posts are few and far between.  Mostly because of the business of teaching.  Although I don't have my own classroom anymore, my RTI position keeps me pretty busy.

Lately I have been exploring all of the RTI resources on the internet.  My search is in the early stages, but I have found some valuable websites.  For example, did you know that the Dibels benchmark assessments and progress monitoring tools are all FREE on the dibels website?  You can find them here:  https://dibels.uoregon.edu/.  Another fantastic website is http://www.easycbm.com/.

There are many phonological assessments available on the internet.  Some good testing resources can be found here  PAST test, and PAST answer sheet.  For more resources, Jen Jones at Hello Literacy has a wonderful blog post:Hello Literacy RTI Assessments.

Anyway, I just used the PAST test on a few students who are struggling to find out where their holes were in their phonological awareness knowledge and both had an issue with rhyming.  I wanted some quick rhyming activities, and while I had rhyming cut and paste picture sorts (Sample), I wanted a center that I could hand to a student to complete more quickly than cut and paste.  I also think my rhyming cut and past picture sorts may be too difficult when first teaching rhyming because they contain a lot of voiced vs. unvoiced sorts, and really, I need two distinct rimes for these students to start with and then maybe reinforce the skill with the cut and paste rhyming sorts later.

So I created these easier Rhyming Picture Sort Centers that start out easy and then have a few difficult ones at the end.

You can obtain a sample center here: Free Rhyming Picture Sort Center

If you are interested in all of the centers, you can find the set of 13 here:

Rhyming Picture Sort Centers

Thanks for stopping by.  Hopefully I will blog again soon ;)

Anna

Free Digraph Posters

Hello All,

I know it has been a while since I posted!!!  Well, I decided to move to Louisville, KY.   While I loved my family, friends, and colleagues in Charlotte, NC, it became very clear to me that being a teacher and growing old in NC are not compatible, unfortunately.  I hope things will get better in that wonderful state.  The amazing weather alone might have made me stay.  The great news is that I love living in this wonderful new city!  Locals here constantly say how much they love Louisville and growing up here.  I have not picked between U of L and UK, but I hear that it is only a matter of time until I will be forced to decide.   I am now an RTI coach/teacher and love my new school! 

Creating things has also been on the back burner, but necessity being the mother of invention, I had to get back into the swing of things.  During the move, I downsized a little too much and could not find my digraph posters, so I made new ones.  Here they are:

 You can get them free here:  Free Digraph Posters--Ch, Sh, & Th

I hope you all are having a wonderful year!

Anna

Good Readers Pay Attention to Patterns of Behavior

As the year winds down I am reflecting on the teaching I've done this year. There are many parts that I am proud of, however, sometimes I tend to dwell on the things that I could have done better.  I am writing this post to lay my thoughts to rest once and for all about this particular comprehension piece of instruction.

We were teaching our kids that good readers pay attention to patterns of behavior in stories.  I was reading Cynthia Rylant's book Pinky and Rex and the Bully.  With the help of my fabulous literacy facilitator, I created this anchor chart.  I had never taught student to look for the pattern in a character's actions so deeply and I was very excited to see how far I could go with the students in such close reading.

It wasn't just noticing the pattern of the actions.  The students had to evaluate the main character's response to the bully and then look for a pattern in his response-something first graders would probably not do on their own.  We noticed that Pinky was always insecure about himself and that he always was allowing someone else to solve his problems. After realizing this, we had rich discussions about why Pinky does what he does throughout the story: He wants to stop being called Pinky (his favorite color) and decides to give his beloved stuffed animals away to his sister.  Instead of being confident and standing up to the bully who is teasing him, he decides to change who he is. 

So far so good, right?  Kind of.  We had an awesome discussion, and many students fell in love with this book.  I could tell, because they constantly wanted to write about it in their Reader's Workshop Notebook. 

But then reading assessments came at the end of the year. It really didn't effect the kids who were at grade level, but it mattered to a student who was above grade level.  You know the student who will learn and remember everything?  All you have to do is teach it right the first time and he/she will remember and apply everything.  The sponge.  During a reading assessment, she noticed the pattern of the main character's actions.  I was so proud.

And that is when I realized I had failed to emphasize one important detail.  As I looked at the assessment rubric, I realized her answer was not sufficient.  What she was not able to do was to explain how the character's action at the end (when the pattern changed) effected the story.

So I added the green words on the bottom of the anchor chart. We revisited Pinky and Rex and I asked her the questions.  We had a wonderful conversation and I think she would have been able to do it had I just taken it one step further. What a wonderful growing experience.  For me.


17 more days until summer.  I hope you all had a wonderful year.

Anna

Free Rhyming Cut and Paste

It has been a while since I created something new, but I felt like I needed a resource that only involved listening.  Rhyming is such an important skill.  When I was a literacy facilitator, an enormous amount of students who had difficulty reading, also had difficulty rhyming.  This experience really drove home the value of phonological and phonemic awareness.  So here is my latest creation, a book dedicated solely to rhyming. 

 

Click here for the Free Rhyming Cut and Paste Worksheet

If you are interested in the whole book, you can find it here:   

Cut and Paste Rhyming Pictures Short Vowels

Happy Spring!  

Anna