Teaching is constantly evolving. What may have been best practice years ago might no longer be recommended. That goes to say that what we were doing wasn’t wrong. We just didn’t know better. And one of those changes is including a sound wall in your classroom. Or, maybe even in replacement of a word wall.
But, for those of you that are like but, why? I will share what a sound wall is, the benefits, and tips and resources to get you set up in your classrooms.
What is a Sound Wall?
It is a way to organize and display the different sounds or phonemes that we hear in speech. It is based on the Science of Reading, and it is like traditional word walls. For instance, the sound wall in my classroom has real photos of children’s mouths making the sound.
A sound wall is divided into two sections, the vowels, and consonants. The sections are commonly displayed side by side. The vowel section, known as a vowel valley due to its shape, is displayed in a particular order to demonstrate the gradual change in mouth opening and closing as you read through the phonemes.
Using real photos helps students understand the necessary mouth movements needed to produce a particular sound. This lays the foundation for establishing the correlation between spoken and written words. Instead of breaking it down by letter, we focus on the 44 sounds. If you’re interested in creating a sound wall with real photos, you can learn more about the resource here.
Building the Sound Wall
Are you ready to build a sound wall in your classroom? If so, my biggest piece of advice is to start slow and gradually fill the board. If your students walk in and 44 sounds are up on a bulletin board, I promise they will be confused and overwhelmed.
Start with an empty board, introduce the sounds as you usually would, and then slowly add the phonemes and graphemes to the board. You will begin to fill the board with your students gradually, don’t let the empty space trick you into filling it quickly. Slow and steady wins the race! You can grab the resource that includes everything you need for building a sound wall.
But, why?
But why would a teacher choose to ditch the word wall and implement a sound wall in the classroom? When we use a word wall, we teach a letter and then display words that start with that letter. But what about those words that sound nothing like the first letter? It’s challenging for students. Word walls can get very confusing, and it relies on memorization. What if the word isn’t on the word wall? What if a student copies it wrong? Sound walls help students master and understand phonology. A sound wall matches the speech sounds to the letters making it easier for students to connect phonemes to graphemes. A sound wall provides a constant visual reference for students and allows teachers to review sounds consistently and, therefore, allows students to spell any word, unlike a word wall.
Ditching the Word Wall
Eliminating an aspect of your classroom that you have been utilizing for a while is difficult. Trust me, teaching has evolved and changed in so many ways since my career began, and it wasn’t always easy to just toss some of my routines and practices. Ditching the word wall doesn’t have to happen. I stopped correlating it with learned sounds and words but instead only used a word wall for thematic units and my English Language Learners.
Transitioning to something new is not always easy but including a sound wall in your classroom helps students to learn the important sound and letter relationships. If you’re interested in learning more about the science behind sound walls, I would recommend this book on the Science of Reading. You can check out this podcast and this website.
Having a sound wall in the classroom helps avoid conversations about why particular words sound nothing like the letter they start with and categorizing becomes much simpler. And remember incorporating a sound wall doesn’t mean you have to ditch the word wall. How do you feel about sound walls? Let me know in the comments.
