I’ve got a little confession to make to you, teacher friends. Last summer I wrote a blog post about how using a simple and kid-friendly sound wall in the classroom can be an effective way to enhance phonics and reading instruction. This is completely true of course, but by golly, I have learned a thing or two since then! Through rigorous training and professional development about new science of reading research, let me tell you, my eyes. have. been. OPENED. I am excited to share with you today my new and improved science of reading-aligned sound wall and accompanying heart words!
First thing’s first, let’s define “the science of reading”. Recent brain research gathered from a variety of fields (cognitive psychology, special education, phonology, etc.) is coming together to show us exactly what needs to happen in order for students to become proficient and fluent readers. This convergence of research, ideas, and instructional practices is what is being termed…you guessed it, the science of reading! And it works. The science of reading tells us that our students need systematic and explicit phonics instruction coupled with direct and correct application of phonics skills. The principles guarantee that at least 95% of our young learners can experience reading success.
Decodability is Key
In what actually feels like a bit of a no-brainer approach (why didn’t I think of this before?), the science of reading emphasizes a student’s ability to decode any word based on a set of phonics skills or rules. We teach them the ‘rules’ in a logical sequence (i.,e. consonants, short vowels, blends, etc.), provide tons of good practice, and watch as the decoding skills grow and grow. The old fashioned approach of just using context, checking the picture, or making a good guess isn’t going to cut it here.
The science of reading tells us that our students need systematic and explicit phonics instruction coupled with direct and correct application of phonics skills.
What are those phoneme and grapheme thingys?
Fundamental to an understanding of phonics and decoding is a knowledge that the English language has 44 speech sounds called phonemes. There are 24 consonant phonemes (the stops: /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/, the nasals: /m/, /n/, /ng/, the fricatives: /f/, /v/, /th/, /th/, /s/, /z/, /sh/, /zh/, /h/, the affricates: /ch/, /j/, the glides: /y/, /w/, /wh/, and the liquids: /l/, /r/). There are 20 vowel phonemes (short vowels, long vowels, diphthongs, r-controlled vowels, and schwa). The phonemes are represented in print by letters or combinations of letters called graphemes. For example, the phoneme /f/ can be represented by the following graphemes: f, ff, ph, gh. As complicated as it may seem, students needs to know about the variety of sound-spelling relationships that exist for each and every phoneme. That is where sound walls come in.
The problem with word walls
For the past two years I have felt rather high-and-mighty about my classroom word wall and have staunchly refused to take it down. It is okay if you are feeling this way as well, but allow me share my revelation with you. A traditional classroom word wall is organized by the 26 letters in the alphabet. The letter Aa section may include the following high-frequency or “sight” words: a, and, about, again, away, are, etc. Do you realize how different all of those initial phonemes sound? Only one of them actually has a short a sound at the beginning! If the word wall is to genuinely be helpful to our students, we cannot expect them to just have the first letter of the word they are searching for memorized. They need to be able to search for their word by its initial phoneme.
The essentials of a good science of reading-aligned sound wall
There are a few non-negotiables when creating and displaying the phonemes for your little learners. Above all, it must be easy for them to understand and reference quickly. A student can be spending a good deal of work time just searching a wall display for what they need. Let’s make it clear for them. I prefer to have a vibrant, real-life, easily-recognizable photographs representing each phoneme. Clip art can be cryptic at times so make sure you are careful in your selection of images.
A good sound wall should also display the variety of spelling options (graphemes) for each phoneme. Some phonemes only have one or two possible graphemes, but others (especially the long vowels) can have quite a few. Depending on the age or grade level of your students you may or may not be teaching all of the possible spellings for a single sound, but I don’t think it hurts to display (especially for your higher readers!) the multiple options when they exist.
I tell my students that the graphemes are organized with the most frequently-occurring at the top. For example, the phoneme /n/ is most often spelled with the grapheme n, but they may encounter other times where it is spelled with the graphemes kn or even gn! My students even see this as an opportunity to be a little reading detective looking out for all of the possible spellings for a given phoneme.
Voicing
Have you heard of voiced and unvoiced phonemes? Don’t worry, I hadn’t either until about a year ago! All of the vowel phonemes are voiced. Voiced phonemes are spoken with the voice box resonating or turned “on”. You can actually feel vibration on your throat when voicing sounds. Try it! Put your hand on your throat and say a few vowel sounds. Do you feel that little vibration? Point this out to your students! Some of the consonant phonemes are voiced and some or unvoiced (or voiceless). Unvoiced phonemes (or voiceless phonemes) are spoken with the voice box turned “off”. Put your hand on your throat and say, /f/. No vibration. Now say, /v/. Feel the difference? Students will be able to as well and it will help clear things up a little bit if they are confusing phonemes.
Mouth formation
In my experience as a first grade teacher most of the students do not require explicit instruction on how their mouth should form each phoneme, but some will. It doesn’t hurt to model (with somewhat exaggerated motions) how to produce each sound. Students will be considering where their lips are, if their teeth are on their lips, if their tongue is between their teeth, if the tongue is touching the roof of their mouth, if the sound is formed in the back of the throat, and more! I love to hand out mini mirrors to my students when we are working on tricky-to-form phonemes. A good science of reading-aligned sound wall will have real-life mouth pictures to help guide students to the correct formation and production.
The vowel valley
Have you seen the vowel valley floating around the internet or on Teachergram? The idea behind the vowel valley arrangement is that the 20 vowel phonemes can be arranged by mouth formation. The further down the valley you go, the lower your chin is dropping. I’ll be honest, I don’t find the organization of the vowel valley especially helpful for my first grade students. Perhaps if more of them struggled forming the vowels it would have greater value in the general classroom setting. I prefer organizing the vowel phonemes by the sequence in which I am going to teach them…basically in order of complexity. You can see a traditional vowel valley formation below as well as the custom classroom arrangement that makes sequential sense with my phonics curriculum. Arrange yours in the way that works best for your class!
What’s all this about heart words?
Do you remember what I was saying about decodability? This is the essence of the science of reading. The more phonemes and associated graphemes our students become familiar with, the more they will be able to decode complex words with greater skill. Once a word is 100% decodable for a student and reaches a level of fluency that they just ‘know’ the word at sight, it is a true sight word and enters into the student’s sight vocabulary.
Because quite a few words are frequently-occurring, even in simple texts, sometimes students will encounter a word that has a phonics skill they have not yet learned. The word may only be partially decodable. The other phonetic aspects of the word have not been taught yet. I like to call those bits the “heart parts“. Words that are not entirely decodable for a student yet are called, you guessed it, heart words! And maybe you’ve also guessed the problem here: it is impossible for there to be one standard list of “heart” words since phonics sequences vary by curriculum.
A heart word can be absolutely ANY word that contains a phonics skill that your students have not yet learned. The word not could even be a heart word if you have not yet taught the phonemes, /n/, /o/, /t/. The term “heart word” implies that there are aspects of the word that students will just need to know in their heart for now. Practice through repeated exposure will ensure some level of memorization until the phonics skill in question has been explicitly taught and the word will be made more clear to them.
It all depends on the sequence of your phonics instruction. For example. I teach digraphs to my first graders in November. Up until that point the words that, them, and this would all have a heart component because they would not have yet learned that the grapheme th represents the phoneme /th/. Because heart words may vary so much from teacher to teacher it is nice to be have the capability of creating and editing your own. My Sound Wall + Heart Words resource comes with a fully editable template for creating your own heart word cards.
Quick and easy routine for teaching heart words
Teaching heart words is not as complicated as you might think! Over the past year as I have attended conferences and acquired science of reading certificates I have tweaked and edited and made over my heart word routine several times. I have arrived at a simple and sustainable routine that is effective and engaging for students. And super easy for me to prep! I’ll outline the steps below or you can download this free heart word routine! You can also watch a slightly cringey video of me modeling my heart word routine with my free digital template.
- Introduce the new word. “Class, today we are going to learn a new heart word. The word is said. Class, say said.”
- Definite the new word or give context. Some high-frequency words are challenging to define, but any and all context will help your students. “Class, our new word said means mentioned earlier.”
- Use the new word in a sentence. “I can use said in a sentence. Listen: Jane said the ice cream was delicious.”
- Segment the phonemes within the new word. “Let’s stretch out (or tap, segment, etc.) all of the sounds that we hear in said. Ready? Go. /S/, /e/, /d/. How many sounds did we hear? (3)”
- Account for the number of phonemes on the template using dots. “Let’s put dots in 3 boxes because we know that our heart word has 3 sounds.”
- Spell each individual phoneme (even if the graphemes students suggest are incorrect): “Let’s look at this first box. How can we spell this sound? (s). What about the second box? (e) How about the third sound? (d).”
- Introduce the non-decodable “heart” parts of the word and explain with etymology if desired. “This spelling of said makes a lot of sense. Good job! But I told you it was a heart word so we know there is something tricky about it that we will just need to remember in our hearts. I’ll show you that now. The surprising part of this word is that /e/ is spelled with ai. Crazy, right? Said comes from the Old English word saith and has the ai because of that word. Ai is the heart part. Put it in your heart!” Draw a heart under the heart part, add a sticker, or designate the heart part in some memorable way. “What’s that word? Said!” Side note: THIS is a great resource for the etymology of each word!
- Quick oral practice: have the students spell the word orally. You can vary this with fun options like whisper voice, monster voice, baby voice, etc.
- Quick kinesthetic practice: have the students spell the word with their arm, write the word in sand, make letters with their body, etc.
- Quick written practice: have students write the word on their whiteboards, with crayon 5 times, with a marker, etc.
Put your heart words up on your classroom sound wall!
After teaching a heart word, put it up on the sound wall! Students will see it, remember it, and be able to search for it when they are writing. The key is to reference the wall and words as much as possible. Model how it can be used! You may have a specific routine for this each day or you may end up referencing it more organically; either way will be effective as long as the wall is frequently and consistently referenced!
The sound wall isn’t limited to heart words though. Definitely not. You can put up absolutely ANY word that you want! Have an interesting new vocabulary word you want your students to remember? Add it to the sound wall! Want to help the students be able to spell one another’s names? Add them to the sound wall! This space in your classroom may very well become the most important part of the room!
Embracing heart words, a sound wall, and the science of reading is the best teacher move I’ve ever made.
It’s true. Nothing has impacted or changed my instructional practices for the better than my new-found love for the science of reading! So if you are feeling a little hesitant, I get it, but give yourself a little bit of room to try some of it out. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed!
Gaining this new knowledge myself has been thrilling, but even better than that is the stark change in the amount of progress I have been able to witness my students making! Little readers blossoming before my eyes like never before! And it is all because I decided to make a few small changes, tweak my instruction to be a bit more systematic and explicit, and give this whole science of reading thing half a chance. You’ve got this, this teacher friend! Make it easy on yourself as you incorporate a sound wall and heart words. It’s going to be great! Happy teaching!
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