Community Signs Sort Task Box

About this resource

EVERYTHING INSIDE — 22 pages, 151 type-in fields

• 24 sign cards in 9 rounds across 3 levels (12 caution sign, 12 helper sign), each round boxed to cut apart as a strip
• Every card twice: a full-color set for a laminated classroom box and a black-and-white ink-saver set for the photocopier
• 2 sort mats (color and ink-saver) with two labeled bins, CAUTION and HELPER, six card slots each
• An answer key listing every round by level, plus the full word list
• A task box data sheet (16 rows: date, level, rounds given, cards correct, cards given, percent, help given, initials)
• A percent graph, 14 sessions across, with a level box under each session
• A filled example — an invented student, 8 sessions, every percent re-counted from its own row
• A family practice page with the same six cards and a mini mat
• A phrase bank: 25 lines in 6 groups (spoken lines for running the box, written starters for the note afterward)
• Start Here, a contents page with page thumbnails, and a "what's next" back page

A task box that comes with its own data. Most sort sets stop at the cards; this one adds the data sheet, the graph and the phrase bank behind them, so independent work practice turns into a line on a page a case manager can bring to a meeting.

The Signs

These are the plain signs a student sees in a school or community building — a stop sign, a restroom sign, a recycling arrow, a wheelchair symbol. The box sorts them into two everyday piles: a CAUTION sign tells you to stop, not to do something, or to watch out; a HELPER sign tells you where something is or that something there is for you to use. Nothing on a card claims what any specific sign legally requires — that is between a student, a family and the place the sign is posted.

The Three Levels

• Level 1 — 5 rounds of two cards: one caution sign beside one clearly helper sign (a stop sign and a wheelchair symbol, a "no entry" circle and a restroom sign). The two look nothing alike even before reading the word, so the first sorts are nearly impossible to get wrong.
• Level 2 — 2 rounds of three cards. The split is not always one and two, so a child has to look at each card instead of counting.
• Level 3 — 2 rounds of four cards, cut as 2 × 2 blocks. The near-miss pairs live here: two red circle-and-slash prohibition signs against two blue litter/recycling helper signs on the same trash-and-water topic, and the two traffic-light shapes against the two restroom-person signs — a child has to look at what each sign actually shows, not sort by color alone.

Nothing on a card says its level except a dot code in the corner (one, two or three dots), so a mixed-up box sorts itself back together.

THIS IS A SHORTER BOX THAN THE COLLECTION'S USUAL SIZE. The clean, correctly-pictured word bank for this sign sort is 12 per side. Rather than pad it with a word that could argue either bin, this box ships honestly at 24 cards / 9 rounds instead of the collection's usual 72 cards / 26 rounds.

The Words

• Caution (12): children crossing, do not litter, no bicycles, no entry, no mobile phones, no pedestrians, no smoking, non-potable water, stop light, stop sign, traffic light, warning
• Helper (12): atm, baby, information, litter in bin, mens, potable water, recycling, restroom, sos, toilet, wheelchair, womens
• Mat icons (never cards): construction sign, left luggage

Every picture was chosen to be named or clearly recognized in one word by a young child, in color AND in the black-and-white set; a picture that read differently in either set was left out of both. "Mens" and "womens" stand in for a male/female restroom pair; "traffic light" and "stop light" name the two traffic-signal shapes (three lights side by side, and three lights stacked).

What This Is, And What It Is Not

It is a fillable PDF: type into the data sheet, the graph header, the family page and the example-style notes, or print and use a pen. The card pages and mats print on cardstock or plain paper and cut along dashed lines. It works offline with no account or subscription. It is NOT an editable online slideshow or word-processor document, and it is not a test of anything.

It carries no prompt hierarchy, fading schedule or mastery rule, and it does not decide what a percent means for a student or when to move up a level. The goal line and the criterion field are blanks for your district's own wording and your team's own number. It measures one thing: cards placed in the right bin.

Who This Is For

Special education teachers and paraprofessionals running independent work stations or task box rotations with early or pre-reading students, case managers who need that practice to show up as data, and the families who get the practice page sent home.

More In The Collection

This is one set in the Task Box Collection; more sort and matching boxes are being added to the collection regularly, all on the same cards-plus-data shape.

Pictures (color pages): Noto Emoji by Google, Apache License 2.0. Pictures (ink-saver pages): Fluent Emoji, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, MIT License.