What are Word Walls?
Word walls are commonly used in Elementary education classrooms but can be used in any classroom to work on vocabulary throughout units and the school year. Students can use the word wall to display the vocabulary words they have used throughout the semester or year. This wall of words can help students relate words to each other by organizing them based on their meaning, part of speech, or connection to a particular event. Word walls are displayed in the front of the classroom to make sure all students can access the list of words. Activities can be done with word walls such as matching games, bingo games, and other fun vocabulary learning games. All students can use this resource to help learn vocabulary and how all the words relate to each other and the particular event they are associated with in a history class. Within a history class, students can use the word wall to arrange words,people, or concepts by relating them to a particular event they may be learning about in history class. The use of the word wall in history class gives students a context for all words, shows how words and concepts relate to one another, and it also shows that many words can be used to represent many different things or meanings. Progress monitoring data can be taken in a classroom that uses a word wall versus a classroom that does not use a word wall to measure the effectiveness of the word wall in a secondary history course.
Research:
According to Jasmine and Schiesl, word walls show to increase the mean words read per minute by students from 41.4% to 63.7% (Jasmine and Schiesl 2009). Along with the higher reading rate, students enthusiasm and engagement in the vocabulary lesson increased when using a word wall within a classroom. Jasmine and Schiesl go on to suggest that since word walls help to promote a higher reading rate, word walls may also help to promote reading comprehension as well. Harmon, Wood, Hendrick, Vintinner, and Willeford state that, "Word walls can be effective literacy tools that hold the potential for enhancing vocabulary learning with older learners when used in conjunction with effective instructional practices" (Harmon, Wood, Hendrick, Vintinner, and Willeford 2009). The authors go on to say that word walls can be an important resource for secondary students because it can be a source for discussion, analysis, and synthesis of important information throughout the school year.
Resorces:
Harmon, J., Wood, K., Hedrick, W., Vintinner, J., & Willeford, T. (2009). Interactive word walls: More than just. Retrieved from http://www.pomounties.org/cms/lib02/PA01000181/Centricity/Domain/410/Interactive Word Walls are More Than Just Reading the Writing on the Walls.pdf
Jasmine, J., & Schiesl, P. (2009). The effects of word walls and word wall activities on the reading fluency of first grade students. Retrieved from http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1065&context=reading_horizons
Resorces:
Harmon, J., Wood, K., Hedrick, W., Vintinner, J., & Willeford, T. (2009). Interactive word walls: More than just. Retrieved from http://www.pomounties.org/cms/lib02/PA01000181/Centricity/Domain/410/Interactive Word Walls are More Than Just Reading the Writing on the Walls.pdf
Jasmine, J., & Schiesl, P. (2009). The effects of word walls and word wall activities on the reading fluency of first grade students. Retrieved from http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1065&context=reading_horizons
Examples:
Below is an example of a layout for a word wall that is organized in alphabetical order. The second picture demonstrates a possible vocabulary game students could play with various words on the wall. Students get a WORDO card and choose various words from the wall and the students essentially play a game of BINGO placing a marker on a word that the teacher reads the corresponding definition for.
Picture reference: Fisher, D., Frey, N., Brozo, W. G., & Ivey, G. (2011). 50 instructional routines to develop content literacy. (2 ed., pp. 150-153). Boston: Massachusetts