Episode 2: The Power Word Sorts Before the Lesson

I miss math coaching sometimes but I am thrilled that I get to teach literacy again…especially word study! 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 now.

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 lesson. Nothing was really wrong with how we approached this…but it just felt kind of blah each week.

I wanted my word study to have more engagement and to be student-led, rather than me droning on.

So I thought back to my math coaching experience. And 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!

Honestly, I’m not sure why I didn’t think of this earlier this year. We always use word sorts when my students are learning about numbers in word form in math.

Using Word Sorts Before Teaching the Lesson

I set up some word study 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 word sort.

Now this is not always an easy task, especially for my multilingual students. But they LOVE the challenge!

I type up the words and definitions on these cards (click here for a free copy). I tried to make them as low-cut as possible!

We use a highlighter to mark the affixes (or roots) our words have in common…and then 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.

With a simple change of activity, engagement has been up and the whole lesson is much more student-led.

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