What is a Word Sort?

According to Jennings, Caldwell & Lerner (2014), "in word sorting, students are presented with several words to sort according to different categories" (p. 218). Usually, students are given cards with words on them and then the students have to sort them based on certain limitations. Jennings, Caldwell & Lerner mention that "words can be sorted according to sound or spelling patterns" (p.218). For example, if students are given the list of words: ping, pat, ring, sing, mat, and fat they could organize them by sound because they either end in -ing and -at. The words used can be word from a book, vocabulary words, words of the week, and so much more. Word sorts can either be open sorts or closed sorts. In an open sort, students can choose their own categories for sorting. In a closed sort, the teacher determines how the students need to sort the words. A word sort can be done individually, in a small group or in a whole group. In addition, categorizing into groups involves students using a higher-order level of thinking which is essential as a 21st century learner.
Click here to play a word sort game for grades 1-5: https://www.eduplace.com/kids/sv/books/content/wordsort/

Visual Representations

The example above is a cut and paste activity where students cut the words out and sort the words by -o,-oa,-ow, and oddballs. This is an example of a closed sort, because the teacher indicated how he or she wants the students to sort the words.

In this video, it teaches it's viewers how to use a word sort in a elementary classroom. It also teaches the different types of word sorts, and it goes through different examples of each.

In this image students are completing a long o word sort. Students are given headings, and need to sort the words according to the headings.

Content Area Examples

A word sort can be successfully used in a all content areas, the only thing that changes is the words on the cards or how the students are sorting the words. For math students might be sorting synonyms of common math terms for adding and subtracting. Students would put the words minus, less and fewer under subtract; and the words more, most, and add under addition. For a science classroom, if students are learning about plant and animal cells they can sort what is in both the cells by using the headings animal and plant. In social students, students could sort events that happen during certain time periods. I actually did a sort like this in my high school U.S. history class. We were given an envelope of 5 different time period, and then in another envelope we had key terms and events we had to sort under the correct time period. This was an example of a closed sort because my teacher determined the categories for me. Finally, for a music class students can sort terms that are categorized under tempo or dynamics. These are just some examples of how to use a word sort in different content areas.