Sortegories™ by 95 Percent Group: a game-changing digital literacy practice tool
Evidence-aligned instruction + engaging systematic practice
The science of reading makes it clear today that direct learning with an instructor is essential for literacy success for students. We also know that students love digital tools to practice at their own pace. What if we could combine the two approaches into one—evidence-aligned instruction and engaging systematic practice? Sortegories™ by 95 Percent Group is a teacher-directed, digital literacy practice tool with fun and engaging student activities. Using Sortegories, students can practice skills in an integrated way—from sounds to syntax—enabling them to develop accurate decoding and improved fluency and comprehension.
Sortegories is designed to be used as a supplement to Tier 1 pre-K to grade 3 instruction in whole class and small group settings, as well as an intervention tool for grades 2 and up. The scope and sequence is grade agnostic—organized into six modules per level based on a systematic and cumulative approach to phonics. Grounded in structured literacy, Sortegories follows the developmental scope and sequence of all children learning to read regardless of their age. It meets the needs of a diverse continuum of learners including students with dyslexia development language disorder (DLD), multilingual learners, and gifted students.
The Word Knowledge Network—Systematic, sequential, and iterative
The Word Knowledge Network is the framework that underpins Sortegories. According to co-authors Ferlito and Eberhardt, “We were concerned back at the beginning with how the reading world struggles with reading in silos. We chose ‘network’ intentionally because it is a network—these are not silos. The Word Knowledge Network framework stemmed from our efforts to show how we don’t teach reading in silos…one area strengthens the other. What you can decode, you then want to make sure you are looking at meaning, and looking at syntax, but in fact, doing syntax helps you know which meaning it is, which helps you decode it more readily. That’s what is iterative about it—these components are not only engaged systematically and sequentially but also iteratively—they reinforce each other. We have deliberately built in those connections in the Sortegories design. The Word Knowledge Network provides a guide to meaningful practice—many trials in varied contexts distributed over time (Ferlito and Eberhardt, 2022).”
A cumulative design approach for success
Sortegories’ systematic, cumulative design enables students to progress from reading decodable words and phrases to comprehending nonfiction passages in these three levels:
Level A: phrase-level syntactic structure
Level A provides instructional modeling and affirmative, informative, and corrective feedback to enable differentiated instruction. Activities develop sound-to-syntax skills including practice with high frequency words, “heart words” (high frequency words that have an irregularity that doesn’t fit any learned pattern—for this reason, the unexpected spelling portion of the word must be “learned by heart”), words with closed syllables, inflectional endings, and phrase-level syntactic structure. Level A is frequently used to supplement core instruction in kindergarten and grade 1.
Level B: sentence-level syntactic structure
Focuses on four-syllable patterns, heart words, multi-syllable words, and sentence-level syntactic structure. It is frequently used to supplement the core in grades 1 and 2.
Level C: passage-level syntactic structure
Offers practice with six-syllable patterns, multi-syllable words, and passage-level syntactic structure using nonfiction decodable text. It is frequently used to supplement the core in grades 2 and 3, and for older students in intervention.
Ferlito expands: “The heart word strategy supports learning high frequency words with irregular spelling patterns in Levels A and B. That scaffold is faded in Level C with an intentional effort to include irregular high frequency or ‘heart’ words in Level C in Sentence Sense. For students who need more practice with high frequency heart words, a comprehensive heart word dictionary is provided for student use. It’s important to fade scaffolds, increase rigor and allow for transfer and generalization of skills rather than maintain the same scaffolds over time.”
Each of the three levels provides nine activities in a 3×3 grid to practice in three main areas of literacy skill development:
Row 1: Read and Spell
Row 2: Word Meaning
Row 3: Comprehension
Integration of all layers of language, from sound to syntax
Why is integration an important keyword for Sortegories?
Dr. Louisa Moats, EdD, explains it:
“Finally, an instructional program that integrates foundational reading skill instruction with other essential language skills. Each highly-scaffolded lesson layers practice with higher-level language abilities including word meanings, word relationships, word usage, and sentence generation. The Sortegories approach is clearly preferable to programs that treat each of the ‘5 components’ of reading as separate and unrelated.”
Aligned with the Simple View of Reading
Sortegories aligns with the science of reading, as represented by the Simple View of Reading. Activities within Sortegories target both decoding (D) and language comprehension (LC), providing the practice that is necessary to read with comprehension.
Easy and flexible implementation and practice for teachers and students
Sortegories provides flexible digital practice for students, easily implemented by teachers using 95 Phonics Core Program® or any Tier 1 curriculum. By assigning modules based on core instruction and performance data, teachers can customize the experience to meet individual needs, helping students practice at their own pace. Students can repeat activities as often as they choose, reinforcing critical skills which help improve their accuracy, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension.
Leverages the Diagnostic Assessment Model to develop skill proficiency
What makes Sortegories so unique? It takes a prescriptive/diagnostic approach: prescriptive starts with engaging students, while typical adaptive programs start with a placement test. Using Sortegories placement data, students jump right into activities assigned by the teacher—teachers can be confident in accurate placement.
Ferlito explains: “Teachers are in the driver’s seat. They always know which activities have been completed by students and how well they did on them. Teachers can decide if students are ready to move on, accelerate, or need review. With Sortegories, the focus is on reading achievement, not the amount of time spent per day or week.”
Engaging activities enhance skills and make practice fun
A number of innovative elements in the design combine to make Sortegories engaging, motivating, and fun for students. First, the tasks are paced, focused, and accessible so that learners can be successful—they know what to do and how to do it so they can experience success at every point. Colorful artwork and animated explanations help students grasp concepts in a memorable way. And if they ever need help, it is a click away, always in the same location on every page in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
An especially popular feature in Sortegories lets students choose a virtual pet to feed with every correct answer. And they receive ribbons at the end of each activity to celebrate performance and encourage awareness of progress. The ribbons are similar to ribbons in a pet show: 100% earns a blue ribbon, 90% earns a red ribbon, and 80% earns a gold ribbon. This activity builds a special motivating connection. And progress in Sortegories adds up toward a donation to help animals in the real world.
Children become quite touched that they are feeding an animal and that they are helping animals when they do well. It’s highly motivating—Sortegories let’s them know they are giving back to the world.
Nancy Eberhardt
Feedback loops help students grasp their mistakes while reinforcing successes with encouragement and rewards
Success breeds success.
Sheryl Ferlito
We know that a student’s ability to make meaningful progress relies on fast, accurate feedback. And feedback loops add to engagement. Sortegories activities reinforce learning in real time with constructive and corrective feedback, helping students identify and understand their mistakes to build on successes. Students receive feedback on correct and on incorrect answers. It’s important for students to understand why their answer is correct or incorrect. If incorrect, students get another chance for a correct answer—they can repeat the exact same activity again. Repetition can be really satisfying and motivating.
Help is a question mark away
When students need help or some additional scaffolding, they can go to the instructional help menu on that screen in the upper right hand corner—it’s always in the same place. Help is animated. It’s read to them. It includes some of the animals they have chosen. It’s all presented in a very concrete way with simple and precise language. That instruction can help them, either with an adult or on their own. Teachers can use that language later, offscreen, to teach those same concepts. The embedded help functions ensure that students never get sent back or stuck at a particular level. The help tools support teachers as well as students—new teachers and teachers still becoming familiar with the science of reading can build their skills while supporting their students. Mini instructional tutorials support teachers who may be new to the science of reading or just need an efficient way to teach or review a concept.
Embedded professional learning
The instructional help supports teachers as well as students. It provides teachers instructional language to give initial instruction and concrete feedback in bite-sized language to help students understand the concepts. For example, teachers don’t have to figure out how to teach possessive s and plural s…it’s all right there.
When Sheryl and I were doing a lot of conferences, we had teachers coming up to see us, and we would show them examples like the feedback in grammar sort which has to do with nouns: words that name—those are nouns, and words that are actions—those become verbs. We had a significant number of teachers say I never knew how to explain that. I didn’t know what words to use to tell them. We felt as though we were in many ways teaching the teachers things that they may not have learned themselves. We give them little mini scripts that help them explain. And we have found that help is really being appreciated because we are supplying something that teachers really need.
Nancy Eberhardt
Dr. Erin Pzinski, a literacy coach in Weston County School District, Wyoming, has been using Level A and Level B with her students. Checking out a preview of Level C before it’s release, she gave another example of using Help to understand pronoun referents: “I just checked out Level C. It is great! I fed a narwhal AND learned about syntax. 😊 I especially appreciated the subject/pronoun referencing section. One of our fourth-grade teachers told me he realized last year that his students were not making those connections. He had to go back and explicitly teach pronoun referents. This year, he is leading with that. I am going to show him Sortegories Level C!”
Sortegories’ built-in, activity-specific instructional support helps teachers learn as they teach while students make progress learning to read. Teachers transitioning from balanced literacy will find multiple supports within Sortegories to help them learn and implement current reading science. The instructional support within Sortegories is also helpful for new teachers as they translate the science of reading into practice.
The perfect synergy of teacher growth and student achievement is a true win-win for the classroom!
Sample Sortegories™ now!
Experience how this easy-to-use digital practice tool makes meaningful, individualized learning accessible for all learners, and helps teachers build their skills while supporting their students.
Unlock the Power of Word Sorting with Sortegories®
Want to help students build strong phonics and spelling skills? Join our on-demand webinar to explore Sortegories®, an engaging digital word-sorting tool designed to boost phonemic awareness and word recognition. Learn how this research-based approach makes word study interactive, structured, and effective. Watch now and discover how Sortegories® can elevate your literacy instruction!
