Summary: I wanted a glossary view of  words and phrase for student reference.
Solution: I found a couple of recipes for a glossary view and a way to sort results by the first letter.

I found a post on Stack Exchange shows how to make a glossary with an attached index, and combined it with another that describes how to group results in a view by the first letter in the field (second response).

Edit: See also https://www.drupal.org/node/403012#comment-10340049