The Paper Pile Sort — What Is This Print For?

Tip out a pile of real household print — a menu, a birthday card, a receipt, a recipe, a calendar page — and work out together what job each one does and who it was written for.

  1. Collect 6–8 different kinds of everyday print: a takeaway menu, a greeting card, a shop receipt, a shopping list, a recipe, an envelope with an address, a calendar page, an instruction leaflet, a ticket, a catalog.
  2. Spread them out and say, “All of these have print on them, but they do different jobs. Let’s be detectives and work out what each one is for.”
  3. Pick up one item. Ask, “What do you think this is? How can you tell?” Let your child look for clues — pictures of food, numbers in a column, a stamp, a grid of boxes.
  4. Read a little of it aloud while pointing along the words, so your child hears that it really does say what they guessed (or something surprising).
  5. Ask, “Who would read this, and why?” — “Someone hungry, to choose their dinner.” “The postman, to find our house.”
  6. Sort the pile into groups your child chooses — for example, print that tells you what to do, print that helps you remember, print that is a message for someone.
  7. Finish by using one piece for real: choose tomorrow’s dinner from the recipe, cross today off the calendar, or check the receipt for something you bought together.

Variation: play “Which one do I need?” — describe a problem (“I want to know when Grandpa’s birthday is,” “I forgot what to buy at the shop”) and your child hands you the right piece of print. Or hide the items around the room for a hunt before the sort.

Requirements

  • Space: A table or clear patch of floor
  • Surface: Flat surface to spread the items out
  • Materials: 6–8 pieces of everyday print from around the house (menu, card, receipt, list, recipe, envelope, calendar page, leaflet, ticket)
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 child; siblings can join
  • Supervision: Full — the adult reads the print aloud and asks the questions

Rationale & Objective

Before children can read, they need to grasp that print is not all one thing — it comes in different forms that do different jobs. Head Start ELOF Goal P-LIT 2 asks that children understand “how print is used (functions of print),” and the EYFS guidance lists “print can have different purposes” among the five key concepts about print. Purcell-Gates (1996) found that 4- to 6-year-olds in homes where print was read and written more often — and who were involved in it themselves — understood better that print carries meaning. Neuman and Roskos (1993) found that preschoolers became better at reading environmental print and naming functional print items when an adult actively engaged with them in a print-rich play setting rather than just looking on (their grasp of what the items were for did not differ). This activity compresses that everyday exposure into a ten-minute game: the child handles real print, uses layout and picture clues to predict its purpose, hears it read, and then sees it used — linking the look of print to the reason someone wrote it.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: calls everything “paper” or “a letter”; describes the pictures only; cannot say who would read an item or why
  • Developing: names 2–3 familiar kinds of print (a card, a menu) from picture clues; gives a simple purpose for some when asked; sorts with your help
  • Proficient: identifies most items and explains what each is for and who reads it; uses layout clues such as a list of numbers or a grid of days; chooses the right item in “Which one do I need?”
  • Advanced: invents sensible sorting groups unprompted; notices how the print looks different on each (a list goes down the page, a card has a name at the top and bottom); suggests writing their own list, card, or sign for a real purpose

Safety Notes

  • Remove anything with staples, sharp plastic windows, or private details you would not want repeated (bank statements, medical letters)
  • Keep medicine leaflets and packaging out of the pile so medicines are never treated as playthings
  • Paper cuts are the only likely injury; stiff card edges are the usual culprit
  • Accept reasoned guesses warmly — a child who says a receipt is “a list of what we bought” is exactly right even without the word “receipt”

Hints

  • Playfulness: deliver the pile through the door in a bag as “mystery post,” or use a magnifying glass for the detective work. Ask absurd questions — “Shall we cook the birthday card for dinner?”
  • Sustain interest: keep a “print box” and drop in anything new that arrives — a party invitation, a seed packet, a bus ticket, a map. A fresh pile every few weeks makes a new game
  • Common mistake: telling your child what each thing is straight away. The learning is in hunting for clues and guessing, so wait, then read a bit aloud to confirm
  • Limited space: do it with just three items on your lap, or play “What is this print for?” with whatever is in your bag while waiting somewhere
  • Cross-domain: sorting and explaining the groups (classification and reasoning); finding today on the calendar or the biggest number on the receipt (numeracy); talking about who sends cards and why (social understanding)
  • Progression: name the item from picture clues → say what it is for → say who reads it → sort into groups → pick the right print for a problem → make a piece of print of their own for a real job

Sources

  • Head Start ELOF, Goal P-LIT 2 — understanding how print is used (functions of print)
  • UK EYFS Development Matters — “print has meaning; print can have different purposes”
  • Purcell-Gates, V. (1996), “Stories, coupons, and the TV Guide: Relationships between home literacy experiences and emergent literacy knowledge,” Reading Research Quarterly, 31
  • Neuman, S.B. & Roskos, K. (1993), “Access to print for children of poverty: Differential effects of adult mediation and literacy-enriched play settings on environmental and functional print tasks,” American Educational Research Journal, 30
  • Common Core ELA-K — RL.K.5 and RF.K.1 (recognize common types of texts; organization and basic features of print)