Alphabetical Order

The days in which alphabetical order is critical because students need to be able to look words up in the dictionary are basically over.  Students who want to look words up need only to be able to type them into a computer or mobile device. But, much of the world is still ordered by alphabet (Making a list? I bet it's alphabetical! Filing things? You're probably doing it alphabetically), so it's an important skill for students to know.

Before starting on these lessons, make sure students know the alphabet. They should be able to recite it easily before starting these exercises.

Why else practice alphabetical order? Alphabetical order makes students very fluent with the alphabet, helping them be able to recall chunks, rather than having to say the whole alphabet every time they need to figure out which letter comes next. 

Working on on an index, first look at the first letter, then the second, is the same process we use for determining number order (or quantity size), first look at the highest place value, then move down, so the process of moving and comparing through a list is important in other realms we well.  Even high tech skills such as computer programming require students to be able to index items, so being able to alphabetize helps students create critical thinking that they will use in other realms.