Parts of speech sorter

What the sorter does

A sentence appears as a row of word tiles. Choose a part of speech from the colored buttons, then tap each word that does that job: nouns turn blue, verbs coral, adjectives yellow, adverbs green, pronouns pink, prepositions purple, conjunctions orange and articles gray. The sorting boxes underneath fill up as you go, so the child can see all the nouns together, all the verbs together, and so on.

There are three levels. The first sorts only nouns, verbs and adjectives, and the other words fade into the background. The second adds adverbs and pronouns. All eight adds prepositions, conjunctions and articles. Check marks each tile right or wrong and, for each wrong one, asks a question that points toward its job, such as "Does it tell how, when, where or how often?", without giving the answer away.

Why sorting helps

Definitions like "a noun names a person, place, thing or idea" only stick when children apply them to real sentences. Sorting makes them look at what each word is doing in this sentence, which is the real test. Color also helps patterns jump out: adjectives sit right before nouns, adverbs often end in -ly, and articles come before nouns.

Common mix-ups

• Calling every describing word an adjective. Adjectives describe nouns (the soft blanket); adverbs describe verbs (slept peacefully).
• Missing verbs that aren't actions. Was and is are verbs too: they show a state of being.
• Thinking a word always has the same part of speech. Play is a verb in "They play soccer" but a noun in "We saw a play." The job in the sentence decides.
• Calling pronouns nouns. She, he, they and it stand in for nouns, so they get their own color.
• Not knowing what to call a, an and the. This tool calls them articles; many grammar books call them determiners.

A 10-minute routine

• On the first level, the child colors one sentence and presses Check.
• For any wrong word, read the hint question aloud and answer it before changing the color.
• Move to the second level. Find the adverb by asking how the action was done.
• Try one sentence in All eight. Point to the preposition and say where or when it shows.
• Finish by saying a new sentence aloud with an adjective and an adverb in it.

Where it fits by grade

• Grade 1: use common nouns, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions and determiners such as articles (L.1.1.b, L.1.1.f, L.1.1.g, L.1.1.h, L.1.1.i). England introduces noun, verb, adjective and adverb in Year 2.
• Grade 2: use adjectives and adverbs and choose between them (L.2.1.e). England adds prepositions and conjunctions in Year 3.
• Grade 3: explain what nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs do in a particular sentence (L.3.1.a). England adds pronouns and determiners in Year 4.
• Grades 4 and 5: use the All eight level as a warm-up before work on clauses and sentence structure.

Learning more

Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions and conjunctions each have a free topic page on Eurekami with practice and a printable worksheet. They are also skills on the skill map, so Daily Practice can bring back the parts of speech a child is still mixing up.