Sort words into labeled columns

What it looks like when your child can do it

• — Given the headings Fruit, Vegetable and Grain and a list of foods, your child writes each food under one heading without skipping any.
• — Your child reads all the headings first, before placing the first word.
• — When a word could go in two places, your child stops and says why they chose one.

How to teach it at the kitchen table

1. 01

   Start with things you can hold

   Put spoons, forks and cups on the table with three slips of paper labeled Spoon, Fork and Cup. Your child sets each item on its label. Sorting real objects comes before sorting words.

2. 02

   Move to words under headings

   Draw three columns on paper with headings like Animals, Foods and Places. Say or show a word, and your child writes it under the right heading. Keep headings short so they can be read at a glance.

3. 03

   Read every heading first

   Before any word gets placed, your child reads each heading out loud. This small habit prevents the most common slip, which is forgetting that a column exists.

4. 04

   Cross off each word once placed

   When a word goes into a column, it gets crossed off the list. Nothing is placed twice and nothing is missed. The book's last lesson has sixteen words to place, so this habit matters.

5. 05

   Add columns a few at a time

   Start with two headings, then three, then four. Grow toward eight over several days. The final lesson asks your child to choose among eight labels for every word, and holding that many in mind takes practice.

You will need: Paper and a pencil · A few household objects for the first sorts

Try it together

1. Try 1

   Draw two columns, Hot and Cold. Say: soup, ice, snow, toast, lemonade, cocoa. Ask your child to write each word in a column.

   Listen for  Hot: soup, toast, cocoa. Cold: ice, snow, lemonade. Watch that every word is written once and none is skipped.

2. Try 2

   Draw three columns, Person, Place and Thing. Say: uncle, kitchen, spoon, baby, park, blanket.

   Listen for  Person: uncle, baby. Place: kitchen, park. Thing: spoon, blanket. The book's first lesson sorts nouns into these same columns, plus a fourth one, Idea.

3. Try 3

   Draw four columns, Red, Yellow, Green and Blue. Say: strawberry, banana, grass, sky, fire truck, lemon, frog, ocean.

   Listen for  Red: strawberry, fire truck. Yellow: banana, lemon. Green: grass, frog. Blue: sky, ocean. Four columns at once is the real step up, so notice whether your child rereads the headings.

4. Try 4

   Give your child the headings Fruit and Color and the word orange. Ask where it goes.

   Listen for  Either can be right. Listen for your child to say it depends on what you mean. That is the idea the last lesson teaches: a word's label depends on the job it is doing in its sentence.

If it is not there yet

• — Go back to two columns with real objects on the table, and let your child move the things themselves before writing any words.
• — Keep the headings large at the top of the page and point to each one as you name it, so your child does not have to hold them from memory.

A few days of this is normal, and it is time well spent. The lesson will still be there, and it will go faster.

Where this skill comes up

• The Parts of Speech, Told by the Greek Myths · Lesson 25

  The Eight Parts of Speech: Labeling Every Word in a Passage

  Needs it because the whole sheet is one long sort, and the child has to hold eight labels at once.