KTL Newsletter 6 - More Ideas On Categorizing

You have seen emails recently about top down webs and other aspect of Keys to Literacy, but we wanted to give you some new ideas for Categorizing. 

image via https://www.pinterest.com/keystoliteracy/

A great way to begin categorizing is to start with an everyday example. You can talk about categories for everyday items such as school supplies (have students place the school supplies in the correct bucket, coming up with an appropriate category label). You might put tools for measuring in one bucket, writing utensils in another, art supplies in another, etc.

One way to make this activity more interactive is to have buckets set up around your classroom. You can take, for example, the vocabulary from any unit of study, and have students place them in the correct category bucket. For instance, a social studies unit could have categories such as Economy, Government, Physical Features etc. of a particular area. If possible, each child would receive a term to sort appropriately, with one student in charge of making sure the others are putting the correct terms into the category. 

You can also do this with smaller groups, and have them sort all the terms and then come up with their own categories or labels for each bucket. If you want to keep it simple, you could use a worksheet to categorize; start off having students sort vocabulary/terms into assigned categories and eventually have them come up with the category label themselves. 

Finally, you can connect top down webs and categorizing by using a top down web for categorizing. This way, students can sort a list of given terms into the correct category and include visuals or short phrases with each term. The top down web with categorizing can then be used as a study guide, complete with visuals. It is an organized way to group terms from a particular unit to help them study and make connections.

Check out more classroom examples of categorizing on the Keys to Literacy Pinterest page.

Hope you find this newsletter helpful!

Please let one of us know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Your KTL Coaches