Introducing: Online Sorts 🎯

Teachers,

We’ve created a new tool that lets you create and distribute sound sorts, letter sorts, word sorts, concept sorts, and other kinds of sorts to your students digitally, called Online Sorts.

With this tool, you can create and distribute sorts within your classroom in seconds. Your students can then click on a link, do the sort exercise, and see their results.

This is a great tool for teachers struggling to run sorts in distributed classrooms, for older students where paper slips aren’t the best tool anymore, or any other number of reasons.

Watch the full experience for Online Sorts in this short YouTube video:

Online Sorts are included in the Teacher edition of Spelling Test Buddy. The Teacher edition is currently on sale for $29.99/year.

To access Online Sorts, for your dashboard, simply tap on the 🎯 Sorts link!

The History and Science of Sorts to teach Spelling, Phonics and Reading

Sorts emerged from developmental spelling research in the 1970s and 1980s, pioneered by educators and researchers like Edmund Henderson, Darrell Morris, and Donald Bear. Their work at the University of Virginia led to the development of what became known as the Words Their Way approach to word study.

The work of Francine Johnston, Marcia Invernizzi, and Shane Templeton further expanded this research, demonstrating that word sorts help students discover orthographic patterns independently, leading to better retention and application of spelling knowledge.

There is more about the science behind sorts and how you can use them in your classroom in our blog post on Spelling, Phonics and Sorts if you want to learn more.