“Why do I have to learn alphabetizing? I’ll never use it!”

Kids don’t always understand why they have to learn the skills we teach them, and alphabetizing might seem like one of those skills to them.

Why Teach Alphabetizing?

Contrary to what your child may think, alphabetizing is an essential skill that will help students in many day-to-day tasks both at home and at school.

Think of the part that alphabetized lists play in your daily life, from phone books, directories, and recipe books to files in a filing cabinet and music playlists arranged by the artist’s last name. Knowing how to alphabetize will make it easier for children to locate and use commonly sought information.

The skill is also important when it comes to schoolwork, as children must be able to alphabetize in order to do their research effectively. Library skills are crucial for any child, and knowing how to find books listed by the authors’ last names or to look up entries in a textbook glossary or book index will make a child’s job that much easier.

Four Basic Stages of Alphabetizing

There are generally four stages that students go through when learning to alphabetize. Here are the stages, along with tips for each stage.

Stage 1: Begin with the Alphabet

Letter tiles make it easy to learn how to alphabetize to the first letter. (If you don’t have letter tiles, you can use Scrabble tiles or squares of paper instead.) Lay out tiles A to Z in random order. One by one, show your child how to place them in alphabetical order, being sure to say the name of each letter out loud as you move it into place. Then have your child repeat each letter name.

The following tips can help reinforce Stage 1 alphabetizing skills.

• Work with your child to put the letter tiles in order at the beginning of each spelling or reading lesson.
• Sing the alphabet song together.
• Demonstrate how to start from different points in the alphabet. For example, lay out the tiles through the letter M, then have him start the alphabet song from L and finish alphabetizing the tiles.
• Hand your child the letter tiles in random order. Teach him that M and N are in the middle of the alphabet, so that when he gets those tiles he knows he should set them in the middle. As you give the child each tile, he should decide if it is in the first half or the second half of the alphabet.
• Ask questions such as “What letter comes after __?” and “Is H in the first half of the alphabet or the last half of the alphabet?”

Stage 2: Teach How to Alphabetize Words

Once a child has mastered putting the letters in alphabetical order, teach him that words can be alphabetized, too.

• Explain that we look at the first letter of a word to alphabetize it.
• Write several words on index cards, each word beginning with a different letter.
• Have your child line up the cards in alphabetical order.
• Use the following words: block, cash, doll, fox, glad, kit, melt, pup, rest, sand, trunk, wish.

Stage 3: Teach How to Alphabetize to the Second and Third Letters

In real-world applications, your student will come across multiple items that start with the same letter (as in children’s authors Sendak, Seuss, and Silverstein). So the next stage is to look to the second or third letter to alphabetize them correctly.

• Write the following words on index cards: bear, bus, bike, band.
• Show your child that all the words start with B, so you must alphabetize by the second letter. Have her identify the second letter and alphabetize the words: band, bear, bike, bus.
• Now add two more index cards with the following words: block, black.
• Show your child that all six words begin with B, but in addition we now have two words with the same second letter. Explain that in this case, we must look to the second and third letter to alphabetize those words.
• Have your child identify the second and third letters and alphabetize all six words: band, bear, bike, black, block, bus.

Stage 4: Teach Common Rules for Advanced Alphabetizing

If your child is more advanced and is consistently able to alphabetize words to the second and third letter, you’ve reached the fourth stage of alphabetizing. Now your child will learn what to do with last names such as McAfee, Macauley, and O’Kearney; book titles that start with The; and numbers.

Here are Common Rules for Advanced Alphabetizing that you can download and print.

Remember, alphabetizing is an important skill, but it doesn’t have to be a boring one. With these tips, your child will be alphabetizing like a pro in no time!

Is your child not quite ready for alphabetizing? You can find lots of great letter recognition activities here!