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DetailsThe T4R Value Pack Bundle includes everything you need to set up your Sound Wall and make speech-to-text connections with the Phone/Grapheme Cards. Contents include:Kid Lips™ CardsKid Lips™ Teacher’s Instructional GuidePhoneme/Grapheme Instructional Cards, Teacher’s SetPhoneme/Grapheme Mini CardsPhoneme/Grapheme Wall PosterConsonant Chart & Vowel Valley Poster Set

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DetailsThe T4R Value Pack Bundle includes everything you need to set up your Sound Wall and make speech-to-text connections with the Phone/Grapheme Cards. Contents include:Kid Lips™ CardsKid Lips™ Teacher’s Instructional GuidePhoneme/Grapheme Instructional Cards, Teacher’s SetPhoneme/Grapheme Mini CardsPhoneme/Grapheme Wall PosterConsonant Chart & Vowel Valley Poster Set

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DetailsThe Sound Wall Starter Pack Bundle includes:Kid Lips™ CardsKid Lips™ Teacher’s Instructional GuidePhoneme/Grapheme Mini CardsIf you’re ready to explore Sound Walls, this starter pack bundle is a great place to start! Using the materials in this kit, you can set up the Consonant Chart and Vowel Valley on your wall, and use the Kid Lips™ Instructional Guide to teach each of the 44 sounds.

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Lessons A-J Resources | UF Literacy Institute

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The first 10 lessons are intended to be taught across approximately the first two weeks of school. These lessons introduce key concepts that will be reviewed throughout the core lessons. In these lessons, students are introduced to the sound wall and the 44 phonemes of spoken English.

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Reading Universe - Scroll Down -Additional Sound Wall Resources!

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Reading Universe - Scroll Down -Additional Sound Wall Resources!

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Reading Universe | A Guide for Teaching the Letters and Sounds

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This guide will help you teach each phoneme, including the letter or letters that make the sound, how to say it, a keyword, and how to write it.

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Reading Universe: Guide for Teaching Letters and Sounds 

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Reading Universe: Guide for Teaching Letters and Sounds 

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Reading Universe, Guide for Teaching Letters and Sounds

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Wonders Sound Spelling Cards - to use the articulatory gesture verbage on the backside

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Wonders Sound Spelling Cards - to use the articulatory gesture verbage on the backside

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Replace your Word Wall with a Sound-Spelling Wall

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Transitioning from Word Walls to Sound Walls | 2022 Literacy Symposium

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Transitioning from Word Walls to Sound Walls | 2022 Literacy Symposium

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Speaking: Mary Dahlgren, Katherine Pace Miles

Access all of the sessions at https://pattanliteracysymposium22.sched.com/ 30. Transitioning from Word Walls to Sound Walls: Why We Should and How To Do It The presenters will discuss descriptive research that Dr. Miles has conducted which demonstrates some of the issues with word walls. Dr. Dahlgren will then discuss how sound walls and accompanying instructional methods should be used to articulate and distinguish between sounds and to strengthen sound-to-letter correspondences. The presenters will also share data on three action research projects that demonstrate the effective use of sound walls. Katharine Pace Miles, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in Early Childhood Education at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. Dr. Miles's research interests include orthographic facilitation and mapping, high frequency word learning, literacy assessment of students with special needs, and literacy instruction for young children that is both developmentally appropriate and grounded in the science of reading. She works closely with New York City's Department of Education to support literacy initiatives that impact the city's most marginalized students. In addition, Dr. Miles supports the alignment of early literacy programs with the field of reading science in an effort to close the research to practice divide.

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PaTTAN - 30. Transitioning from Word Walls to Sound Walls | 2022 Literacy Symposium

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Access all of the sessions at https://pattanliteracysymposium22.sched.com/ 30. Transitioning from Word Walls to Sound Walls: Why We Should and How To Do It The presenters will discuss descriptive research that Dr. Miles has conducted which demonstrates some of the issues with word walls. Dr. Dahlgren will then discuss how sound walls and accompanying instructional methods should be used to articulate and distinguish between sounds and to strengthen sound-to-letter correspondences. The presenters will also share data on three action research projects that demonstrate the effective use of sound walls. Katharine Pace Miles, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in Early Childhood Education at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. Dr. Miles’s research interests include orthographic facilitation and mapping, high frequency word learning, literacy assessment of students with special needs, and literacy instruction for young children that is both developmentally appropriate and grounded in the science of reading. She works closely with New York City’s Department of Education to support literacy initiatives that impact the city’s most marginalized students. In addition, Dr. Miles supports the alignment of early literacy programs with the field of reading science in an effort to close the research to practice divide.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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A Guide for Teaching the Letters and Sounds

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A Guide for Teaching the Letters and Sounds

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If you are a kindergarten or early elementary teacher and have been considering using a sound wall in your classroom but are not sure if it will work or how and where to set it up, this post will offer some helpful suggestions and options as well as some useful resources.

What is a sound wall and why should I use one in my classroom?

A sound wall focuses on the sounds (phonemes) and the letters/letter patterns that represent those sounds in words.

The goal of a sound wall is to help students become proficient readers and spellers by helping them build solid phoneme-grapheme correspondence. The sound wall helps young students become aware of the speech sounds in our English language and that these sounds can be put together to create words. After all, print is speech in visual form.

Young students come to us able to say sounds through speech (talking). Sound walls help them connect those sounds to how they are represented in print. In other words, they go from speech to print.

Sounds walls include the 44 phonemes (speech sounds) of our language, rather than just the 26 letters of the alphabet. Learning the phonemes makes reading/spelling less confusing for students. For example, if a student's first name is "Chase" and it is placed under the alphabet letter "C" which he learns represents the /k/ sound as in "cat", he will be confused. Placing it under the digraph "ch" will make more sense since he will learn that the /ch/ sound in the beginning of his name is represented in print by the two letters "ch".

A sound wall is organized by place and manner of articulation (where in the mouth the sound is being produced and what is happening with airflow) rather than alphabetical. This helps students see what it takes in our brains and facial muscles to produce the sounds of our language.

Sound walls also create an awareness of articulation (how the sound is formed with the mouth) which helps young students better distinguish between sounds and letters/spellings.
Sound walls help students connect speech (what they already know) to print and build the phoneme-grapheme correspondence needed for decoding and reading words.
A sound wall is a very helpful teaching tool, but its success is very dependent on understanding why and how to use it with students. Therefore, I highly recommend attending professional development classes and/or doing some research on your own. Here are a few helpful resources to get you started. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but are a few favorites.

Helpful resources for learning more about sound walls:
Speech to Print book by Louisa Moats, Ed.D.
Mary Dahlgren: Retire Your Word Wall: How Sound Walls Support the Science of Reading (Podcast)
Mary Dahlgren: Sound Walls vs. Word Walls Transitioning from Word Walls to Sound Walls
How to Set Up Your Sound Wall

Spacing

The first thing to consider is where to place your sound wall. Spacing and location are important when deciding where to put your sound wall in the classroom. The vowels and consonants should have a divider in between them or be placed on separate bulletin boards or walls; therefore, you need 2 fairly large bulletin boards, walls, or spaces.

You also want your sound wall to be easily accessible to both you and your students, so it should not be too high up.

Most sound walls will fit on standard classroom bulletin boards of 7 feet x 4 feet. So if you have 2 free bulletin boards or a large wall space-great!

But what if you have a smaller space?

Option 1: Scale and print sound wall cards to fit your space. Measure your available space and measure the size of the sound wall cards you wish to use.

Figure out approximately how much space you would need for each (vowel valley and consonants) based on the configuration of a sound wall and the current size of the cards. Here is an example using my sound wall cards.

Divide your available space by the space needed at the current sound wall card size.

Scale the pages to that percentage prior to printing. For example, if your available space for the vowel valley is 42 inches wide, you would do 42 / 75 = .56. Therefore, you would print the cards at 56% or lower.

Option 2: Use a sound wall poster. Print a sound wall at poster size and hang it where it is accessible.

Option 3: Use a digital sound wall. Don't have the space for a sound wall in your classroom? Project an instructional digital sound wall onto your whiteboard or smartboard during instruction and when students are writing. Give students their own printable versions to use for reference when writing.

This is an example of a digital sound wall that is included in this resource.

Printable sound wall for students to keep at their desks for reference.

How to Arrange the Vowel Valley

The vowel valley is arranged according to the shape the mouth makes when speaking the sound and where in the mouth the sound is produced. If you watch your chin in a mirror as you say the sounds in the first slope (ē, ĭ, ā, ĕ, ă, ī, ŏ) it will drop and then go back up as you say the vowel sounds in the upward slope (ŭ, aw, ō, oo, ū, yū).

The diphthongs and r-controlled vowels are not part of the valley and should be placed underneath it or to the side of it. This is because your mouth position changes when making the diphthongs and the r changes the sound the vowel makes in r-controlled vowels.

Schwa - The schwa can be placed in the center of the vowel valley since any vowel can be a schwa. After teaching about the schwa sound, it is up to you whether to keep it on the sound wall or not. Since it is not helpful with spelling since any vowel can be a schwa, some teachers choose to remove it after the concept has been taught.

How to Arrange the Consonants

The consonants on a word wall are arranged according to place of articulation (where in the mouth the sound is being produced) and manner of articulation (what is happening with airflow when producing the sound). They are grouped into 7 categories:

Stops - quick puff of air then stops, air stops immediately. Have students place hand in front of mouth when saying the sound to feel the puff of air (p,b,t,d,k,g)

Nasals - air flows through the nose. Have students hold their nose and try to make the sound (they can't do it). (m,n,ng)

Fricatives - friction in the air flow (f,v,th,th,s,z,sh,zh,h)

Affricates - combination of fricative & stop, friction that is cut off, like a tug of war with sound (ch,j)

Glides - glide into next sound (wh, w, y)

Liquids - air moves around in our mouth like water overflowing (l, r)

Two Sounds - 2 sounds combine (qu, x)

How to Arrange the Sound Wall Cards

The arrangement of a sound wall is very important. It is arranged by sound and the cards should go from sound to print.

The mouth card should be first so students can see how the sound is made and when searching for a sound on the sound wall they can easily find it by matching how their mouth looks when making the sound.

The keyword picture card should be next. These pictures help remind students of the sound.

The spelling or word cards should be last and only put up or visible after you have taught the spelling. Personally, I use individual word cards with a picture that reminds students of the word and the targeted spelling highlighted in a different color. This shows young students that sounds make up words and where in the word the featured spelling or letter is found (beginning, middle, end).

I prefer to add the word spelling cards one at a time as they are taught so that the wall is not overwhelming for my students and we build the sound wall together.

Using Locks to Cover Sound Wall Cards

Presenting a sound wall with all of the cards visible at once can be overwhelming for young students. Therefore, lock cards can be placed over the cards and taken off as you teach each sound.

It builds excitement for the students (they can't wait to see what is under each one!) and makes it more interactive and meaningful for them since you are building (revealing) it together.

I like to build even more excitement by having 2 real keys on my desk that we use to "unlock" each sound. Students love it!

I hope this has been helpful in setting up your sound wall. If you are interested in using the sound wall from this post, click the link below. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at lessonsforlittleones@gmail.com.

Resources used in this post:
Sound Wall with Real Mouth Pictures & Photos + Digital
Pin it for later!

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How to Set Up a Sound Wall in Kindergarten, Early Elementary - Lessons for Little Ones by Tina O'Block

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If you are a kindergarten or early elementary teacher and have been considering using a sound wall in your classroom but are not sure if it will work or how and where to set it up, this post will offer some helpful suggestions and options as well as some useful resources.

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Understanding Consonant and Vowel Phonemes in English

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Understanding Consonant and Vowel Phonemes in English

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Sound Wall Lesson Example - Reading Horizons Discovery Sound City™

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Tips for introducing a speech sound using a key word.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Shannon and Mary chat with Christina Edmondson (@literacywithmrs.e) about implementing Sound Walls into your literacy classrooms. Christina shares how Sound Walls compare to traditional word walls and provides ideas for using them with students in reading and writing. She describes exactly how to set up your own Sound Wall and start using with your readers.

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S4 E11 Sound Walls - Reading Teachers Lounge

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Shannon and Mary chat with Christina Edmondson (@literacywithmrs.e) about implementing Sound Walls into your literacy classrooms. Christina shares how Sound Walls compare to traditional word walls and provides ideas for using them with students in reading and writing. She describes exactly how to se

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Sound Wall Implementation Support | Move from a word wall to a sound wall. | By Stephanie Stollar Consulting | Facebook

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Empowering educators with the literacy resources and training to help every child achieve reading success.

Trust Tools 4 Reading for the resources you need for your elementary classroom.

We're proud to welcome to our team:

Nova Williams Assistant Director of Learning Services-Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment

Mercer Island School District, WA

"I love the Kid Lips cards, Kids Lips Instructional Guide with the user-friendly lessons, and the Phoneme/Grapheme cards. Our teachers love them, too."

Erika Gordon Kindergarten Teacher

Kalispell, MT

"This class was amazing. It was encouraging to me in reminding me that what I was doing with my kindergarten was the right thing to do, even if others weren't doing it. And it gave me so, so, so many new things to try this next year. I appreciate all the extra articles that were linked and have printed and read almost all of them so far. What an amazing class. Thank you!"

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Tools 4 Reading provides great resources for your classroom such as Phoneme/Grapheme Card and Kid Lips.

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Sound walls are becoming more common in classrooms thanks to a clearer understanding of the science of reading.

A quick search on Teachers Pay Teachers shows there is a demand for materials for sound walls, but not all the information out there is accurate. While well-intentioned, we need to understand why a sound wall is set up differently than an A-Z alphabetical word wall and how to use a sound wall effectively. The goal is to elevate daily instruction during Tier 1 by reviewing the 44 speech sounds and the options for spelling each of the sounds. By doing this daily review, it becomes automatic for students to access sounds and know how to match spelling to each sound. A confusion between letters and sounds still exists on the part of the teacher in many situations. For example, the silent letter grapheme represents the /n/. (When you see the diagonal lines with a letter in between, this represents the sound.)

Our goal is to help you transform word walls into sound walls. Many practices are being used with word walls that we can adjust to use with sound walls. Following is some advice for teachers making the change from a word wall to sound wall. These tips can be used to guide the explanation of how to set up a sound wall.

Step 1:

We begin with the speech sounds and then add the print. Phonemes can be classified by articulatory features that have to do with placement in the mouth, airflow, and voicing. Begin by talking about how your lips come together when saying the /p/. Notice what happens with your tongue when you say /l/, it is lifted in the top of your mouth behind your teeth. There is also a vibration when saying /l/, and we call that voicing. During a two- to three-week period, introduce all of the 44 speech sounds by the articulatory features.

Don't confuse this with all of the spellings of the sounds. By introducing each phoneme, you are giving students an organizational structure to understand the foundation of our language. Even in kindergarten, you are asking children to blend and segment words with all of the speech sounds. Segment the sounds in book, /b/ /oo/ /k/. You wouldn't teach students to read with /oo/, but they use the sound in their speech all of the time. Why not teach the sound explicitly and discuss how we make that sound, what it looks like, and feels like? Once the sound is obvious, it will be much easier to attach the different graphemes for reading and spelling.

Step 2: Attach a keyword to help students remember the sound.

It is unnecessary to print words on different colored paper or outline the shape of a word. Please do not do those things that distract from learning about phonemes (sounds) and graphemes (print).

Once a sound is introduced, teach the most common letter or grapheme that represents the sound. For example, after introducing /p/ teach them that is the most common spelling for that sound. This is easy initially in kindergarten but becomes more complex in first grade because children have to learn about digraphs and vowel teams that are used to spell many sounds.

Step 3: Daily review and discuss all of the sounds that have been introduced.

What are the six stop sounds? /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/

What are our vowel sounds? Ask children to repeat each vowel sound as you point to either a picture of a mouth forming that sound or a keyword that represents the sound. Find the / ā/, and what are the spellings we know for this sound? Commons spellings for / ā/ ai, ay, a_e, and a. These will be the most common spellings used in first grade. Use this information to help students attend to sounds as you are segmenting and blending words during your phonemic awareness practice. As they focus on phonemes during their phonological awareness exercises, this connection between speech and print is enhanced and elevates the understanding of how the two work together.

Step 4: Engage in activities using the sound wall.

Identify the distinguishing features of voiced and voiceless consonant phonemes; orally produce individual consonant phonemes after correct teacher modeling of the voicing distinction: /p//b/; /k//g/; /t/ /d/; /f/ /v/; /sh/ /zh/; /th/ /th/; /ch//j/; /s/ /z/

Explore the way related groups of phonemes are pronounced: stops /p/, /b/, /t/,/d/,/k/, /g/; hissy sounds /f/, /v/, /th/, /th/, /s/, /z/,/sh/; nasals /m/, /n/,

/ng/; glides /h/, /w/, /wh/, /y/; and liquids/l/ and /r/.

Play the speech-sound guessing game. Students imitate the sounds and/or look in a mirror to answer questions such as, which sound is made with the lips-/p/ or /k/? Which sound is made with the mouth wide open-/ŏ/ or /w/? Which sound is made with the tongue between the teeth-/f/ or /th/?

Say /b/, /b/, /b/, and then try saying the same sound with your lips together and popping the air out with your voice on. Now, keep doing the same thing with your lips and your breath but turn your voice off. What sound? /p/ /p/ /p/.

Do a picture sort with /p/ and /b/. In this classroom, the teacher has the students working with the confusing sounds /p/ and /b/ which are only differentiated by voicing.

Step 5: Use the sound wall for independent learning by problem solving.

When a student asks how to spell " meet," ask them to find the /ē/ and look at the choices for spelling that sound. This is much more efficient than asking them if they can find a word that sounds like or rhymes with " meet." By using a sound wall and connecting directly to the graphemes, students have much quicker access to mapping speech to print.

If a student stumbles on the word like " night" while reading, point out the and direct them to the long card on the sound wall. What do we know about this spelling and the sound it represents?

Let's keep this conversation going. Please add your comments and questions below so we can add to the understanding of sound walls at work in a classroom.

Listen to Mary's podcast about the importance of Sound Walls here.

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Implementing a Sound Wall: Because We Need to Distinguish Between Sounds and Letters

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Sound walls are becoming more common in classrooms thanks to a clearer understanding of the science of reading. We need to understand why a sound wall is set up differently than an A-Z alphabetical word wall and how to use a sound wall effectively to elevate daily instruction during Tier 1 by reviewing the 44 speech sounds and the options for spelling each of the sounds.

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Transitioning from Word Walls to Sound Walls

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Transitioning from Word Walls to Sound Walls

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You are welcome to print copies for non-commercial use, or a limited number for educational purposes, as long as credit is given to Reading Rockets and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact the author or publisher listed.

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Transitioning from Word Walls to Sound Walls

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Sound walls support students with learning those tricky high-frequency words. They also support students in retaining and learning to read unfamiliar words on their own. A sound wall does the work of matching our articulation of speech sounds/phonemes to the letters/graphemes that represent those sounds.

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