5 Fun Word Wall Ideas

A word wall is a visible display in a classroom that features a collection of words that the students are currently studying. Word walls can focus on high-frequency words, word study examples, academic language, or words that are being introduced in classroom content. They can be used to support phonics, spelling, vocabulary, comprehension, writing, and more. Word walls have long been a useful strategy for helping younger students process words over the duration of the school year.

Make words accessible by putting them where every student can see them. Teachers and students should work together to determine which words should go on the wall, and try to include words that students use most commonly in their writing. Words should be added gradually, and the wall should be periodically updated to reflect new words and concepts introduced during the course of instruction. Word walls should be referred to often so students come to understand and see their relevance.

Learning with word walls can be both educational and enjoyable. Here are a few creative and fun ideas:

• Color coded: each word is written in a color corresponding to a subject. Words could be color coded by type (noun, verb, adjective, etc.), spelling, complexity, and more.
• Picture card: each word has a corresponding picture of the word to aid student understanding.
• Wow words: as the students come across interesting and important words, the teacher can add them to the wall.
• Student pictures: each word is written and illustrated by a student, and the images help students make stronger connections to the printed words.
• Word stems: one of the ways early readers expand their mastery is by learning to recognize words that have the same spelling pattern. This word wall groups words in the same word families together for easy reference.

Allison Green
Boston Tutoring Services