Alphabet Avenue

My first grade team had a flexible way of having their students practice alphabetical order. We purchased multiple sets of colorful sight word flash cards that are produced by several publishers. The picture is on one side and the word on the other. (We laminated them for durability.) Each child was given 5-10 cards each day to alphabetize as part of their daily seatwork during reading groups. It was a good way to practice alphabetizing while reinforcing sight word vocabulary at the same time. You can differentiate the activity by raising the bar for some students with alphabetizing to the second and third letter. Struggling students or children with poor fine motor skills only had 5 cards each day and none began with the same letter. We encouraged the children to look at the alphabet line on their desks or the one on the wall. Before they copied the words onto a paper, they had a predetermined buddy/parent helper, etc. check them. It was painless that way since they could just rearrange the cards if needed. It can be used as a portable center since they can do it on the floor or on the top of their desks. Some teachers sort the cards into 3 groups and put them into color coded, numbered envelopes. It's easy to keep track of who completes each envelope. Just copy a class or group list and put it on the front of the envelope. Kids can circle or check their name upon completion. It's good to have the whole alphabet in front of them or available for reference. You'll hear some at-risk students singing the alphabet song as they work on this activity! I love it! This is a good lead-in to using the dictionary. If your kids have personal writing dictionaries, have them add new words during your guided reading or skill lessons. Ask them where they will find the first letter of the word: at the beginning, middle, or end of the alphabet and refer to your alphabet chart. This will quickly eliminate turning countless pages while looking for the right letter!