Students sort letters of different styles and fonts. Students also sort letters of the same style by characteristics of the letter. This helps children to focus on features and aspects of letters that distinguish one letter from another (such as circles, tails, tall, short, uppercase, lowercase, etc.).

Teacher Preparations:

For sorting by different fonts…

  1. Using a word processing program, type up one set of upper case letters and one set of lowercase letters, making sure to leave about 3-5 spaces between each letter.  Next, select all of the letters and copy them 6 more times. Select one set of upper and lowercase letters and change the font. Repeat for the other sets of upper and lowercase letters. 
    If you wish to skip this first step, here are some fonts to cut apart. 
                                                   black letters only 
                                                   colored letters
  2. Cut apart all of the letters.
  3. Divide the letters Aa-Ff, Gg- Kk, Ll-Pp, Qq-Uu, and Vv-Zz.
  4. Choose 5 different colors of construction paper-one color for each set of letters. Cut construction paper into 1 ½ by 2-inch rectangles.
  5. Glue the sets of letters onto the construction paper.
  6. Get 5 white pieces of tagboard (9 by 12 inches). 
  7. Lay the tagboard horizontal and divide the tagboard pieces into 5 or 6 sections by drawing vertical lines down. About 1-½ inches down, draw a horizontal line across the tagboard. **When drawing the lines, use the same color of marker as the colors of construction paper.  For example green lines for the letters A-F that are attached to the green construction paper.
  8. Print out an uppercase letter for each letter of the alphabet using whatever font your school is required to use. (We use D'Neilian.) Cut apart the letters and glue one in each box that was formed on your tagboard- being careful about the colors!
  9. Laminate all pieces. Then cut away!  (This is a good thing to have volunteers do or do while watching your favorite TV show.)
  10. Store each set of letters in a separate bag/container.

For sorting by letter characteristics

  1. Using a word processing program, type up the letters needed  (see table below).  Don't forget to make each letter underlined!
  2. Type up categories for students to sort by (using your school's required writing style).
  3. Cut apart all of the letters-keeping them in the correct set.
  4. Choose 5 different colors of construction paper-one color for each set of letters. Cut construction paper into 1 ½ by 1 1/2 inch squares.
  5. Glue the sets of letters onto the construction paper.
  6. Get 5 white pieces of tagboard (9 by 12 inches). 
  7. Divide the tagboard into sections. **When drawing the lines, use the same color of marker as the colors of construction paper. For example green lines for the round/not round letters that are attached to the green construction paper.
  8. Print out your category headings using whatever font your school is required to use. Cut apart the letters and glue one in each box that was formed on your tagboard- being careful about the colors!
  9. Laminate all pieces. Then cut apart.
  10. Store each set of letters in a separate bag/container.

 The following are the categories and letters I used for sorting D'Neilian letters.

  • round/not round : A, a, B, b, C, c, D, d, E, e, F, G, g, H, I, k, L, l, M, N, O, o, P, p, Q, q, R, T, U, V, W, Y, y, Z, z
  • under water/not under water : all lowercase letters
  • monkey tail/no monkey tail : all letters (upper and lower)
  • tall/short : all lowercase letters
  • Misc. – dot, roof, cross, tummy, hill : a, b, D, d, f, g, h, I, j, k, m, n, P, p, q, R, r, t

 

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