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

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

Free Listen and Write Long Vowel Patterns Worksheet

I have been an awful blogger as of late, not attending to my blog, but this year has been a year of change.  I wonder how many of you out there feel the same way.  There have not been enough hours in the day to keep up with it all.  However, necessity is the mother of invention, and I have some kiddos who needed some extra beginning long vowel practice, so something had to be invented.

These students have completed the Cut, Paste, and Spell picture sorts, and while that has helped them a lot, they need a little more help practicing noticing the difference between long and short vowels.  Here is a chart that I am using to help them take charge of their learning by encouraging them to "discover" long vowel pattern rules like, if you hear the long o sound at the end of a word, use the ow pattern.  There are lots of discoveries kids can make.  I spent the first few years teaching word study and pointing things out, thinking that kids would remember.  I said things like, "look!  If you hear a long vowel use ch (like in peach) and if you hear a short vowel use tch (like in catch).  I would hear "ooohhhh" like everything was clear as a bell but many still would forget the rule.  Now I do everything I can to have students discover their own rules.  I won't give it to them ever.  It doesn't help.  If they discover it, they own it.  You will sometimes see me pulling my hair asking kids what they hear and what they know about sounds and how are the sounds the same and how are they different and any question I can think of without telling them a rule.

I also created some worksheets that are not cut and paste, but I still wanted the students to look at the pictures and practice listening to themselves say the words and write the words looking for patterns.  In addition, other students are finishing their morning work more quickly these days and I needed something that provided some more practice but was quicker than the cutting and pasting.  I created phonics worksheets that was similar to sorting, but also made them choose whether they heard a short or long sound first, so that I could train them to ask themselves that question first.  Until it is automatic, it will delay them noticing patterns related to sound.

Here is how it turned out:

 
You can grab this freebie here: Free Listen and Write Long O Worksheet

If you are interested in the full books, I have created 4 of them to correspond to the pictures in the 4 Cut, Paste and Spell books.  They are available as individuals or as a set.  Each book has at least 30 pages.

Listen and Write Books, Set of 4

Listen and Write Word Families
Listen and Write CVC Words
Listen and Write Blends and Digraphs
Listen and Write Long Vowel Patterns


Thanks for stopping by!  If any of these are useful, please let me know in the comments section.  I have had almost 30,000 visitors, and I would love to hear from some of you!


Happy Teaching!

Anna

Developmental Spelling meet Picture Sorting

Do you love picture sorting as much as I do?  Don't you wish your students could spell the words after they get through sorting?  These 3 books are designed to do just that!

You may have seen my first two, but the 3rd book focuses on contrasting all the short vowel combinations while including blends and digraphs.

Picture sorting is an awesome way to help your students develop Phonemic Awareness.  Students manipulate the pictures by cutting, sorting and gluing them in categories.  Because they are pictures, students are forced to listen and feel for the sounds in their mouth.

I have had picture sorting a major part of my reading curriculum for some time.  However, I have always had the students spell the pictures by using their invented spelling because most picture sorting materials use any words.  Some have many syllables, and others are a higher level than a student who is picture sorting would be able to spell. I dreamed of someday creating all of my own picture sorts that would contain ONLY pictures that would be developmentally appropriate to spell.
I have finally created these.

If you are new to picture sorting, you must get into a routine of introducing the pictures before the activity.  Even simple pictures are not always interpreted the same by students.  However, it is well worth the effort, because in picture sorting, the student is active and in charge.  They are not being talked to, but they are listening to themselves and feeling the sounds in their own mouth instead of listening to the teacher while the teacher is in charge of the phonemic awareness activity/routine.

I feel the picture sorting is one of the biggest "bang for your buck" in the teaching of beginning reading.  Once you establish a routine of picture sorting, so many "aha" moments occur for both teachers and students.  As a teacher, when you observe a student saying a sound wrong, you understand that your student will not understand those letter combinations until they are making those sounds in their mouth correctly.  One of the most common examples is the word drive.  Many teachers know that students who are beginning to learn to read spell it JRIV.  This is because they are feeling it that way in their mouth.  But picture sorting gives you a chance to discuss it with students and not have the focus be on the letters, but on the formation of the sound in their mouth.  In addition, you are also providing another way of learning to spell by incorporating the kinesthetic association with their mouth.

Another way to focus on how the letters are formed are to teach kids about voiced and unvoiced consonant sounds.  For example, B and P are both made the same way except one is made with your voice and the other with a puff of air.  Highlighting this for your students will help them to become fluent in letter-sound correspondence and help them get through the letter-sound (letter-name) level more quickly.  I tried to highlight these combinations in the Word Family Cut Paste and Spell book.  Here is a sample page that focuses on ending voiced and unvoiced consonant sounds:

As an added bonus, students get practice cutting and pasting.  Fine motor skills lead to advancements in other areas as well.  I have noticed that when I teach handwriting solidly in the beginning of the year, that my students are much better writers by the end of the year content-wise.  This is because fluency in handwriting frees up brain space so that students can concentrate on what they are writing and not how they are writing it.  Don't let anyone tell you handwriting is not important.   Interested in the link between handwriting and quality writing?  Google "handwriting fluency" and you will see that there are many studies that link it with writing quality.  Click HERE for one good article. But I am digressing.  Just know that LOTS of cutting and pasting are good for students.

Here are some free samples of the books.  I hope you like them!

Book 1  Cut, Paste, and Spell Word Families Mini Sample

Book 2 Cut, Paste, and Spell CVC Words--Contrasting All Vowels Mini Sample

Book 3 Cut, Paste, and Spell-- Blends and Digraphs--Contrasting All Vowels Mini Sample


To purchase the full books, please visit my TPT store here: 

Cut, Paste & Spell Picture Sorting Books 1, 2 & 3 Combo Pack Phonemic Awareness

They are also sold separately if you are interested in a particular one.

Thanks for stopping by! 

10 more days of school for me!  How about you?


Wishing you the best summer!

Anna