Alphabet Organizer has numerous applications for classroom instruction. Students have the option to enter one word, more than one word, or a word and related notes for each letter of the alphabet. Elementary students can use the tool to create an alphabet book with words for each letter of the alphabet. The tool can also be used to have students brainstorm and discuss background knowledge on a topic they are beginning to study. At the end of the unit, the chart can be revisited to add new information or to correct erroneous information. Alternatively, the tool can be used for a vocabulary study by having students enter vocabulary words and related notes or definitions. This interactive tool enables students to print an alphabet chart or pages for an alphabet book. Lesson plans on ReadWriteThink illustrate various examples of how the tool can be used in the classroom; for ideas of how to use it outside the classroom, see Tips for Using Alphabet Organizer.

Visit this interactive tool at: http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/alphabet/.

ReadWriteThink Lessons That Use This Tool

3, 2, 1...Blast Off! Vocabulary Instruction Using a Virtual Trip to the Moon (K-2)
Capture the qualities of field-trip learning in the classroom. Working independently and in groups students learn vocabulary about the moon; however, the activities can be applied to any content area topic.

A is for Apple: Building Letter-Recognition Fluency (K-2)
This lesson, which is most appropriate for kindergartners, provides multiple and varied opportunities for students to work with letters. Students play games, work online, and create an ABC book to become more fluent at letter recognition.

A–Z: Learning About the Alphabet Book Genre (K-2)
Using a collection of alphabet books and websites, this lesson for second graders builds and extends students’ knowledge of alphabet books. After the class generates a sample book together, students work in flexible groups to write their own alphabet books and share them with an audience.

ABC Bookmaking Builds Vocabulary in the Content Areas (6-8)
Are you looking for a fun, new way to teach content area vocabulary to your students? How about having them create ABC books? Bookmaking allows students to pinpoint for themselves the words they don't know and to use their own descriptions and illustrations to create an appropriate context for new vocabulary.

Action ABC's: Learning Vocabulary With Verbs (K-2)
Having a well-developed vocabulary is important to help students become successful speakers, readers, and writers. This lesson guides students in exploring and learning about verbs, culminating in the creation of an Action Alphabet book. Each page includes a word and sentence describing an illustration of the verb.

Alphabetizing With Original Stories (K-2)
Students familiarize themselves with alphabetical order while writing original stories, which can then be showcased in the classroom. Following a brainstorming session, students are challenged with the task of making books solely composed of words in alphabetical order.

Alphabiography Project: Totally You  (6-8)
Instead of writing their life stories in a linear fashion, students write their biographies from A to Z in this nontraditional autobiography activity, which was inspired by the book Totally Joe by James Howe. After the entry for each letter in their alphabiographies, students sum up the stories and vignettes by recording the life lessons they learned from the events.

Delicious, Tasty, Yummy: Enriching Writing with Adjectives and Synonyms (3-5)
This lesson for students in grades 3 and 4 teaches them about adjectives and synonyms. Students work in small groups using webs and form poems as their primary tools for developing adjectives and synonyms to describe everyday items. Thesauri, webbing tools, alphabet organizers, and picture books are used to help students identify, organize, and modify descriptors.

Focusing Reader Response Through Vocabulary Analysis (6-8)
Students suggest words that they associate with a novel they have recently read, ranging from details about the plot to feelings about a character; then, small groups of students arrange the collected words into at least four categories, that they then present and explain to the class.

Improving Fluency through Group Literary Performance (K-2)
Repeated readings and literary performances help students with their reading accuracy, expression, and rate. In this lesson, students participate in shared reading, choral reading, and readers theater, focusing their exploration on picture books by Bill Martin, Jr.

Our Community: Creating ABC Books as Assessment (K-2)
What is one way we can we assess mastery of content standards with our youngest students in creative and engaging ways? By helping them create alphabet books! This integrated assessment can be used with science, health, social studies, and any other content area. This lesson plans looks at the theme of community.

Promoting Cultural Values Through Alphabet Books (3-5)
Students embark on a cultural research project by first reading a variety of alphabet books about world cultures. Groups then self-select a culture and conduct research into the history and symbols of that culture. As a final project, students construct their own cultural alphabet books and share them with an audience.

Q is for Duck: Using Alphabet Books With Struggling Writers (3-5)
Think alphabet books are just for kindergarten? Think again! In this lesson, students examine a variety of alphabet books, some with rather complex structures, and are guided through a structured writing lesson using the book Q is for Duck: An Alphabet Guessing Game by Mary Elting and Michael Folsom.

Shared Spelling Strategies (6-8)
Students increase their spelling accuracy (i.e., standard) and their retention by "constructing" spelling using sound, sight recall, and analyzing strategies, among others, instead of memorizing lists of words. The aim is to deal with spelling during drafting while preserving fluency.

The ABCs of Poetry (9-12)
This exercise works as an introduction to poetry or as a great word warm-up. Students, as a whole class and later as individual authors, examine a letter of the alphabet from all angles (straight-on, upside-down, and side-to-side) creating image pools of original metaphors on the spot.

Using Songwriting to Build Awareness of Beginning Letter Sounds (K-2)
This musical lesson, focusing on beginning letter sounds, is an engaging way for students to practice using selected letters by creating verses to a song. Students think creatively to develop and sing song verses and then illustrate the verses to be included in a class songbook.

Writing ABC Books to Enhance Reading Comprehension (3-5)
In this lesson, students will use an online interactive, the Alphabet Organizer, to think critically about a piece of literature. Using the alphabet as an organizing structure, students will analyze literary elements in the story, such as characters, setting, and themes, organizing their observations in an alphabet book.