Episode 2: The Power of Starting with Word Sorts

I miss math coaching sometimes but I am thrilled that I get to teach literacy again…especially word work! And my latest passion has been using word sorts before introducing a new affix or root.

We are currently using Morphemes for Little Ones and Morpheme Magic (both by Deb Glaser) for our word study in my ELL groups, from 1st grade to 4th grade.

When I was a classroom teacher, my students always kept notebooks for word study and the same is true with my multilingual learners:

Each Monday, I introduce a new affix to my groups (varying by grade level of course!). We write and illustrate an example and set up a word list.

But I wasn’t loving the format. Nothing was really wrong with how we approached this…but it just felt kind of blah each week.

So I thought back to my math coaching. And then I felt of bit of shame…I would NEVER just introduce a math concept by talking through it in a notebook alone. We always began with hands-on learning and explored a concept before note-taking.

And then I realized I could do the same in ELA…with word sorts!

Starting with Word Sorts Before Teaching the Focus

I started setting up some word work kits (nothing fancy, just a photo box to store the words and definitions, along with some highlighters):

And we started launching each new week with a sort.

This is no easy task, especially for my multilingual students. But they LOVE the challenge!

We use a highlighter to mark the affixes (or roots) our words have in common…and a different color to highlight the link between the word and definition when possible.

What a difference! With a simple word sort, my students are completely engaged. They are also doing the work of figuring out our affix/root for the week, as well as its meaning.

By the time we take our notes, my students are able to talk about the affix/root and its meaning, while I listen and note on the document camera.

I’ll be honest, setting up the word sorts takes a bit of time…but I am willing to do this because it’s been worth it

I’m already thinking of words sorts for our next lessons in Math and Science. More to come!

Do you use word sorts before introducing a new focus for the week? I’d love to hear your thoughts below!

New to this series? Check out Episode 1…