Teacher Modeling of an Open Word Sort
In the classroom described in this study, a pocket chart is hanging on the wall and the children are sitting on the carpet in front of it. Aileen Wheaton, their teacher, tells them they are going to “fishbowl” -- in other words, they will watch her as she sorts the cards, thinking out loud. She will occasionally ask for their input.
“I'm going to sort my words,” she begins, “but before I can, I have to read all of them. Closed, bugged, dated, divided, dotted, traded, stated, shipped.... Listen to that -- stated, shipped, stripped.... What's different? Let's see.... Stopped, skipped, planned, baked.... Baked.... I hear something different at the end of that, even though I see a d. OK. Chased. Yep, I definitely hear something different at the end of these words.... Do you?”
The students nod in agreement. “Good, then it's not just me!” Aileen continues. “I hear a t. Do you? Where's the d then? Picked, popped, tracked.... I wonder if the different vowels in the middle are making these sound different.... No, I don't think so. What do you think?”
The students begin making suggestions about the words ending in -ed.
“OK, then, let me look at these words. They all end in -ed, but some have different sounds. So, not only should I look at the letters, but I should listen to them. I hear words that end in t...so I'm going to make a category of words that end with the t sound. I know I'll have some words left over. And those words have two different sounds at the end, even though they are spelled with -ed. I have a category of words like divided -- they end with the did sound. I also have some words like bugged that do not sound like divided or skipped. So I must have three categories. I'll try to sort the words cards now and check to see if I am right.”
Aileen then begins to read each card and decide in which category to place it. Occasionally she appears to be unsure, so she reads aloud all the cards in one category and checks the sounds against each other.
“We have all our words in one of three categories. What should we call these categories?” The children suggest categories for did and t sounds, and plain -ed.
“How might I finish the sentence 'I sorted my words and I discovered...'?” The children offer some suggestions, and Aileen picks up with “I sorted my words and I discovered that the ending -ed has three sounds. Now I have to figure out why there are three sounds for the same pattern. When I look at all the words in the t category, I notice before the -ed is the letter p or k, and that those letters are not before the -ed in my other categories. And, the words that sound like did at the end have a t or d before the -ed, and they are the only words like that in my categories. So, the last category must be other letters, like g and s. So, I think I figured out that the way the -ed sounds has to do with how the root word ends.
“Remember, when we sort, we have to use our ears and our eyes; we can't let just one guide our sorting. I heard different sounds, but I see one ending. It's important for me to look and listen. Now I want to test my hypothesis about the way these words end and the sound of -ed.”
Aileen continues to talk about the words and takes suggestions from the children of other words that might fit the categories.