Sorting Activities
Sorting activities (including word sorts and concept sorts) ask students to categorize words, pictures, objects, or concepts into groups based on a shared feature such as meaning, sound, spelling pattern, function, or category. In a closed sort the teacher provides the categories; in an open sort students generate their own categories and justify them. The strategy makes abstract relationships among ideas visible and concrete, turning vocabulary and content study into a hands-on, talk-rich, analytic task. Because students must explain why items belong together, sorting integrates oral language with reading and reasoning.
How it’s typically applied
- 1Choose 10 to 15 words, pictures, or objects tied to a specific unit, text, or content concept, and prepare them on cards. Add images and home-language labels so meaning is accessible from the start.
- 2Decide whether to run a closed sort (you provide the category headers, useful for introducing or assessing a concept) or an open sort (students invent and name their own categories, useful for deeper analysis).
- 3Model one or two placements aloud, thinking through the feature you used to decide, so students hear the academic language of justification ('I put these together because they both...').
- 4Have students sort the cards individually, in pairs, or in small groups, and ask them to talk through each placement and reach agreement.
- 5Circulate and prompt with 'Why does this go here?' and 'Could it go anywhere else?' to push students to articulate their reasoning and consider more than one relationship.
- 6Hold a whole-class debrief where groups share and defend their categories. Surface that some items can be sorted more than one way, then name the target academic categories.
- 7Extend the sort: a timed 'speed sort' to build fluency, a 'blind sort' done from a partner reading the words aloud for listening practice, a written record of the final categories, or a follow-up writing task explaining the groupings.
Why it works for emergent bilingual students
Sorting activities are a strong fit for emergent bilingual students because they keep the cognitive demand high while making the task accessible: a student can demonstrate sophisticated conceptual understanding by placing a card before producing an extended explanation in English. The manipulatives, pictures, and category headers act as comprehensible-input scaffolds and lower the anxiety that can block participation (Krashen, 1982; Echevarria et al., 2017), and the small-group talk creates a purposeful, supportive space for oral output and negotiation of meaning. Critically, sorting honors and leverages students' existing conceptual knowledge and home language. Because concepts developed in a first language transfer across languages through a common underlying proficiency (Cummins, 1981), an emergent bilingual who already categorizes plants, polygons, or story elements in Spanish can apply that knowledge immediately and then attach English labels to concepts they already understand. The categorization itself develops academic thinking: identifying similarities and differences and classifying are among the highest-leverage cognitive strategies for achievement (Marzano et al., 2001), and sorting embeds them in language-rich practice.
Adapting it across proficiency levels
Pre-Production
Use picture cards and real objects rather than text, with clearly labeled category headers that include images. Accept nonverbal responses: students point to or physically place items in the correct group. Allow sorting in the home language first, and pair students with a bilingual partner. Keep it a closed sort with two or three concrete, visual categories (for example, animals vs. plants), and provide a sentence frame that you voice on the student's behalf as you narrate the placement.
Beginning
Provide a closed sort with teacher-given category headers shown in both words and pictures, and pair each word card with an image. Offer sentence stems for justification ('This goes here because it is a ___.' / 'Both of these are ___.'). Let students label or chorally name items as they place them, and welcome brief use of the home language to clarify meaning before producing the English term.
Intermediate
Move to a mix of open and closed sorts. Students sort word-only cards (images available on request) and explain placements in short phrases or sentences using provided academic vocabulary and connectives ('similar to,' 'unlike,' 'belongs to the group of'). Introduce items that could fit more than one category to push reasoning, and ask students to justify their choice aloud to a partner before the group debrief.
High Intermediate / Advanced
Spanning High Intermediate and Advanced: use open sorts where students generate and name their own categories, then defend them in extended oral or written explanations using precise academic and content-specific language ('classify,' 'distinguish,' 'criteria,' 'category'). Increase complexity with abstract concepts, multiple valid sorting schemes, and a requirement to compare two different ways of organizing the same set. Students at these levels can lead a sort for peers and write a paragraph analyzing the relationships, demonstrating both linguistic control and conceptual nuance.
In the classroom
In a 5th-grade science unit on classifying matter, the teacher gives small groups a set of 12 picture-and-word cards (ice cube, juice, oxygen, milk, steam, salt, helium, syrup, brick, fog, honey, oil), each labeled in English and Spanish. Groups run a closed sort into three headers shown with icons: Solid, Liquid, Gas. As students place each card, they use the frame 'We put ___ here because ___.' A Pre-Production student places cards correctly by pointing while a partner voices the reason; an Intermediate student explains, 'Syrup is a liquid because it flows but it is thick.' During the whole-class debrief, the teacher introduces a tricky item (fog) that sparks debate, then names the academic distinction between a gas and tiny suspended liquid droplets, deepening the concept after every student, at every proficiency level, has already participated meaningfully.
Research basis
Word and concept sorts develop vocabulary, word knowledge, and conceptual categorization through hands-on, analytic word study across developmental levels.
Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2016). Words their way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction (6th ed.). Pearson.
Identifying similarities and differences, and classifying, are among the highest-leverage cognitive strategies for raising student achievement.
Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D. J., & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Conceptual and academic knowledge developed in a first language transfers to a second language through a common underlying proficiency, so categorization skills learned in the home language support learning in English.
Cummins, J. (1981). The role of primary language development in promoting educational success for language minority students. In California State Department of Education (Ed.), Schooling and language minority students: A theoretical framework (pp. 3-49). Evaluation, Dissemination and Assessment Center, California State University, Los Angeles.
Acquisition is supported when comprehensible input is delivered in low-anxiety conditions that do not force early production, allowing learners to participate and produce when ready.
Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Pergamon Press. [link]
Comprehensible input, building background, explicit vocabulary instruction, and structured interaction (including manipulatives and grouping) make grade-level content accessible to English learners.
Echevarria, J., Vogt, M. E., & Short, D. J. (2017). Making content comprehensible for English learners: The SIOP model (5th ed.). Pearson.
Sorting strategies have students sort items into teacher-assigned categories or categories they generate themselves, and are well suited to multilingual learners when supported with images, sentence frames, and a chance to work in the home language first.
Colorín Colorado. (n.d.). Match, sort, and order. WETA Public Broadcasting. https://www.colorincolorado.org/teaching-ells/ell-classroom-strategy-library/match-sort-and-order [link]
Concept sorts introduce students to the vocabulary or ideas of a new topic, can be run as open or closed sorts, and are particularly beneficial for English language learners when supported with category headers, pictures, and partnering.
Reading Rockets. (n.d.). Concept sort. WETA Public Broadcasting. https://www.readingrockets.org/classroom/classroom-strategies/concept-sort [link]
Effective for the 2026-2027 school year, Texas adopted reorganized English Language Proficiency Standards (relocated to 19 TAC Chapter 120) that expand the proficiency continuum from four to five levels: Pre-Production, Beginning, Intermediate, High Intermediate, and Advanced.
Texas Education Agency. (2025). 19 Texas Administrative Code Chapter 120, Subchapter B: English language proficiency standards (effective February 2, 2025; implemented 2026-2027 school year). Texas Education Agency. [link]
Sources reviewed by an independent second-language-acquisition specialist and an adversarial citation audit.
Ask Verónica about Sorting Activities
Verónica is our AI tutor, and she knows this strategy. Tell her about your classroom, your mix of proficiency levels, or a specific TEKS you are planning to teach, and she will help you put Sorting Activities to work.
These strategies are part of the free ELPS Online Helper. Learn the 2026 ELPS and earn 1 hour of CPE credit.
Explore the free course