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A tool for cohesion and student independence
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§ “A sound wall does the work of matching our articulation
of speech sounds/phonemes to the letters/graphemes
that represent those sounds.”
§ “Speaking is natural and something we can learn to do by
being immersed in language. However, reading is not
natural. We need to explicitly teach students to hear the
individual phonemes in the words they hear in
language…Helping students recognize the way their
mouth feels and looks when producing sounds will help
them connect speech to print.”
Reading Rockets- “Transitioning from Word Walls to Sound
Wal ls
§ “Get your ears ready for what your eyes are about to see.”
–Antonio Fierro
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§ Mississippi Literacy Conference presentation showing 3
different students at different ages attempting to spell the
same word. Instructional coaches used the sound wall to
diagnose errors by looking at rows and columns on sound
walls to clarify where the students were confusing letters
and sounds.
§ Desperation to help my 10/21 students that were in speech
§ Noticed lack of retention with phonics skills with 3
rd
graders,
and after researching learned that things like sight words do
not go into long term memory automatically
§ Students had extreme difficulty labeling and explaining
their learning (ex: why a certain word is spelled the way it
is)
Science of Reading in Action by Malia Hollowell
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§ Transitioning from traditional sight word teaching method (flash cards and
repetition with very little success and retention) to using mirrors and the sound
wall as tools to orthographically map the same words
§ Had to take the time to analyze word list to see what could be broken down with
vowel teams etc. and what were truly heart words
§ Fee li ng ove rwh elmed with te rmin ol ogy a nd f ear of i mple mentin g it i nc or rec tly
(page 4 in Tools4Reading handbook)
Science of Reading in Action by Malia Hollowell
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-Mouth pictures are relatable to students
-Show me how to make the sound.
-What happened with your voice box?
-Is the airflow continuing ?
-Now, tell me where the sound is in these words-
is it at the beginning, the end, or in the middle of the
word?
Sound Wall Phonics cards
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§ Labeling the categories of sounds so that students can begin
seeing the similarities and differences and put names to their
learning
§ Clear sections for each sound category for students to follow
§ Sticky notes for words studied (sight/heart words, can also be
used for vocabulary etc.). This allows for it to be a working
and active resource for students, which will provide more buy
in and usage in classroom.
§ Sound wall can be used to cohesively tie entire literacy block
together. Used during phonemic awareness (Heggerty),
phonics, sight word instruction (reordering our list based on
phonics pattern), breaking apart vocabulary words, used as a
resource for critical writing in response to reading, and in
student writing.
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§ “The best defense (intervention) is a good offense (Tier 1
instruction).” –Staci Bain
§ Structured literacy approach:
§ Explicit (following phonics scope and sequence)
§ Multi-modal (verbal, written, motions, sand trays, play doh, music, etc.)
§ Diagnostic (immediate feedback)
§ Sound walls are an enormous support in this. It allows the teacher to notice,
address, and instantly support the productive struggle to correct mistakes.
§ Use of mirrors, classroom culture (student coaching other student to turn voice
box off)
§ Think of yourself like a coach or diagnostician (voice coach video example)
§ “With this background, we can evaluate how closely children’s spelling errors
approximate the sound patterns in speech…The spellings look odd until we
consider the strategies the student is using.”-Moats in Speech to Print
§ ”Distance from the target phoneme should be noted, with reference to the vowel
and consonant charts. Substitutions of sounds that share most features with the
target phoneme are more positive indicators than substitutions that share few or
no features with the target phoneme.”-Moats in Speech to Print
§ Cumulative
§ We c a n n o t j u s t a s s e s s t h e p h o n i c s p a t t e r n / s k i l l w e a r e c u r r e n t l y w o r k i n g o n .
Using running survey to log decoding and encoding data to chart continuous
mastery of skills will help us provide authentic and vital feedback.
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§ “The pedagogy a teacher uses to teach phonics has its basis in how
children learn and touches both science and art. This makes
understanding by the teacher of how decoding knowledge unfolds
in children critical so that they are more likely to learn and retain
what is taught.” - Yo u n g , P a i g e , a n d Rasinski in Artfully Teaching the
Science of Reading
§ Tools used: mirrors, Tools4Reading instruction guide, sound wall,
reading roads, phonics ppt created from Phonics First teacher’s
guide, dictation page, alphabet arcs, textured grapheme cards with
verbal script of letter formation
§ Multi-modal strategies: ppt with pictures, letter tracing on carpet,
motions for each sound, sound wall and other phonics songs, sand
trays in small group, playdoh letters/words, magnetic tiles, pushing
chips etc., tapping fingers for sounds…
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§ Traditional method-put on flashcards and practice at home
or during transition times, maybe put in a sentence to hear
word in context.
§ Orthographic mapping using sound wall and multi-sensory
approach-
§ The gnouser swam away from the predator into its home in the
coral reef. (with action)
§ Load it up using Phonics First method
§ We e k l y r o u t i n e :
§ Day 1: Orthographically map using mirrors and dictation page
and collectively place on sound wall in at least one area
§ Day 2: Use whiteboards and mirrors to orthographically map
(load up word, tap it out, write together, touch brains (Reading
fingers out! Let’s send those m essages to our brains!), touch and
rea d wo rd to geth e r, erase a n d rec tan g le, tap out w o rd ag a in an d
write it in the rectangle, tap it out and put lines for sound boxes,
rea d wo rd (L e t’s b u ild t hose dend r i te s !) , how m any s y llables,
sounds, letters, erase and show (teacher informal assessment of
students’ grasp of learning)
§ Day 3: Same basic procedure with bumpy boards and red crayons
§ Day 4: Same procedure but with play doh
§ Day 5: Review game
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§ “Phonological processing is an integral part of oral language
because words by definition have sound, meaning, and roles in
sentences…If an individual is having trouble encoding incoming
speech codes into long-term memory, then the quality of the
memory may be degraded. Degraded mental representations of
speech, in turn, will affect ease and accuracy of word retrieval.” –
Moats in Speech to Print
§ Tools used: mirrors, pres elect ed vocabulary from text, vocabulary
picture cards, sound wall, various texts, kernel sentences
§ Strategies: use sound wall to notice patterns, syllables, motions,
used in sentence for context, part of speech, students do motion
when word is heard in text, discussion of related words
§ Famo us F rid ay exa mp le wi th Al exa nd er Gra ha m Bel l (i nt ro int o
morphology)
§ Picture examples
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§ “Approaches that incorporate writing instruction are more
effective than one focused only on the teaching of phonics
instruction. This is because writing builds additional and
overlapping pathways in the brain which work to strengthen
phonics acquisition.” – Yo u n g , P a i g e , a n d Rasinski in Artfully
Teaching the Science of Reading
§ Tools used: mirrors, sound wall, wr iting paper, content-
related vocabulary words, text to ref erence
§ Strategies: verbalizing and pounding out sentences, tapping
out words, using vocabulary in writing, constantly referring
to sound wall
§ Wea lt h of in fo rm ati on a nd mo st a ut he nt ic wa y t o an aly ze an d
assess mastery and transfer of knowledge (student work
slides)
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