Learning to file documents may feel a little outdated, given the role of technology in our lives. But let me assure you, filing has not gone the way of the Dodo. In my house, we follow a filing system to file away bills, important documents related to insurance or medical expenses, and projects the kids create that we want to keep. Creating a filing station in your classroom can help your students work on potential job skills and further support them in developing their literacy skills. We never know which activities are going to appeal to our students or open the door to a distantly related vocational passion. Here is how we do filing in our classrooms.
What materials are needed for a filing system?
We keep a C-Line, a filing cabinet, a paper tray, and a large variety of items to sort. We follow a Left-to-Right system and teach our students to follow a process when they file. On the left is the paper tray with papers that need sorted, in the middle is the C-line, and on the right is the filing box or cabinet.
Take a page, sort it on the C-line, continue until all pages have been sorted, file pages into the cabinet.
Level 1
These pages contain a single letter, number, or a name. We start by teaching students to match the letter or number to the tab on the C-line and insert the page under the correct tab. Our students often need us to begin by reducing the field size of the C-line, so we just tape over the letters we aren’t using with blue painters tape and unhide tabs as we work on expanding their ability to scan the full array of tabs.
Once we open up the full line and our students are sorting by letter and number, we increase the level of difficulty. Next up is a page with a name. The student must identify the first letter and sort accordingly on the C-line. If the student needs help identifying the first letter, we give them a page with the first letter highlighted. Once they get the hang of this, we remove the highlight and teach them to sort without the visual prompt.
Don’t forget to think about generalization from the beginning! Using a variety of fonts on the pages helps to promote generalization down the road. There are many fonts out there, but the font does not change anything meaningful. If we don’t practice using a variety of fonts from the beginning, we may run into issues later.
Level 2
This level builds on the basics learned in level 1. Sort by last name, by date, by company. Use the pages to sort by month or year. Your student should have a clear way of knowing how he is expected to sort. Plan how you will communicate this with your student ahead of time. A model hanging on the wall, a written instruction, a verbal direction? Whatever you choose, make sure you consider the long-term value of the instruction. Either now or down the road, the way you communicate the element your student should sort by should be intentional and well thought out.
Level 3
Level 3 includes realistic documents. Letters, reports, bills, etc. all contain a significant amount of text. This text can be distracting when filing. We teach our students to attend to the important information on the document and sort by what is important.
How much value can one activity hold?
Vocation Stations are great for teaching a variety of companion skills that are needed to be successful in a job. Other skills that can be learned within the filing system include maintaining focus, persisting in a task, increasing speed, asking for help when something goes wrong, and reporting your work is finished. We may need to specifically target and teach these skills as we go, but adding this into a rotation of vocation skills is a great place to start! Be sure you teach the basics of sorting and use of the C-line first, and then begin selecting companion skills to teach later.
Check out this great article for more information on creating a structured work environment. These systems are often started when children are small, but the value of these ideas go well beyond elementary school.
For more activities to use in your Jobs Rotation Stations, have a look at our Letter Board activity.
Check out this activity on TeachersPayTeachers
