Ms. Cotton's Corner

I’ve spent a significant amount of my career teaching ELLs, and even when I’m teaching native speakers, explicit vocabulary instruction is an important focus of my classroom. I try to spend a few minutes each day on direct instruction of vocabulary. My goal is to teach 500 words a year – and even that is a small fraction of the words that I should be teaching.

Check out some of my other blog posts on teaching vocabulary: 

• Why Teach Vocabulary?
• Tiered Vocabulary Instruction – Properties of Matter
• Practicing Vocabulary with Beat the Clock
• Wander Words
• Words, Words, Wonderful Words – The Three Tiers
• Words, Words, Wonderful Words – How Can We Teach Them All?
• Words, Words, Wonderful Words – What Does the CCSS Say?

This blog post will help you identify best practices for using Word Walls to improve vocabulary instruction in your classroom!

Getting Started with Word Walls

Word Walls are a key strategy in helping me meet that goal of 500 words a year. As you are setting up your Word Wall for the year, here are a few things I have learned over the years.

The power of a Word Wall is in its interactivity, and that’s also the most difficult thing to achieve. I’ve found more success if I keep the Word Wall cards in a pocket chart, like this one which shows some of the Word Wall Cards from my Matter Word Wall resource.  Recently, I taught a Science lab about Matter, and it was really easy to pull the Word Cards that I needed from the pocket chart. The students grabbed the cards that matched each station which made it much easier for students to use the words in speech and in their observations during the lab.

Another benefit of the pocket chart is that I can add words that come up unexpectedly in class. I prepare Word Cards that I use intentionally, but I also seize the teachable moment and add words that we encounter in books, videos, conversation….

Because I use a pocket chart, I can’t fit all of the words for the year at one time. So, students keep a personal Word Wall as part of their Writing Notebooks. Before I remove the Word Cards for a unit, I make sure the students have the words in their notebooks. I also store the previously learned Word Cards in an alphabetical accordion folder so that students can find them if they need them later on.

Make sure you choose a spot that is easily visible and accessible. One year I put my Word Wall in the back of the classroom, and kids didn’t use it. Even though my students’ desks face all directions, there is something about the front of the classroom that communicates importance. Put your Word Wall in the front if you can.

One benefit of using a bulletin board is that the words can be alphabetized and can be more easily found when a student needs to spell or review a word. If you go that route, I recommend making two sets of the Word Wall cards – one for the bulletin board and one to be used anywhere – in stations, centers, table activities, on the whiteboard or under the doc camera….. The second set helps keep the words alive and interactive.

What do you include on a Word Wall?

If you missed it, be sure to check out my blog post on Tier 2 words. That post explains the three tiers. What you need to know for today is that explicit instruction in Tier 2 words is a best practice for vocabulary instruction. In the intermediate grades, that means the Word Wall includes mostly Tier 2 words because they are the ones that my students need direct instruction with. I also include some Tier One words if I want my students to be sure to spell them correctly, and I add Tier 3 words when they come up.

If you don’t already have one, a COBUILD Dictionary is a great tool to explore. Besides all of the other things that a dictionary can do, COBUILD dictionaries tell us how frequently a word is used in written English. Very common words are Tier 1, and need little to no instruction. Very uncommon words are rare, and also need little to no instruction because, in all likelihood, the average reader will never encounter them. For example, abecedarian is a Tier 3 word. You may be an abecedarian when it comes to the COBUILD dictionary. But unless that word turns up as an important idea in a book or other context, I won’t spend direct instruction time on it in class.

As teachers, we want to put our energy into teaching our students the things they will likely need to know. For example, this link will take you to an online COBUILD dictionary where you will see that the entry for isthmus has two out of five dots colored. This tells you that isthmus is one of the 30,000 most frequently used words in English. So, some direct instruction is probably warranted. That’s why isthmus is one of the words included in this Landforms Word Wall resource. 

Plateau, with three colored dots, is one of the 10,000 most frequently used words. And it is a word that students struggle to spell, so it is a perfect word to spend direct instruction time on, and should receive greater focus and deeper instruction.

This Landforms Word Wall set includes both of these words, plus 30 other landforms. Check it out today!

Three Ways to Add Words to the Word Wall

There are many great ways to do this, so let your creative mind flow! But, if it’s late and your brain is tired, here are three ways I introduce words.

I use my Landforms Word Wall resource in Social Studies every year. Each card has a photo of a landform in the US, so I double my impact by teaching important Science and Social Studies content!

This resource includes 32 terms. At the beginning of the unit, I choose the Tier 1 words that my students likely already know, and quickly add them to the Word Wall. It should take about 10 minutes of class time. The goal is to make students aware that the words are there, that they should know them, and that they are responsible for spelling them correctly, now and forever.

For the Landforms unit, I generally choose these words: beach, cave, cliff, desert, hill, island, lake, ocean, mountain, river and valley.

Playing “Categories” to Add Tier 1 words to a Word Wall

Once I have chosen the Tier 1 words that I think my students know, we play Categories. This game builds connections between words and helps students build an understanding of the category of Landforms. We are creating a space in the brain for students to add words that fit this category, so the game also prepares students to learn new words!

You can make this a competitive game by putting students in teams and having them play against each other. However, I like play Teacher vs. Student. In that version, they have three clues to guess the word. If they don’t, I get the point. If they do, the point goes to the students. They ALWAYS win!

Here is how the game sounds.

Teacher: Class, today we are going to play Categories. I have 10 words. Our category is landforms. The first definition is “a piece of land that rises higher than everything around it.” What word do you think that definition matches?

Student: Mountain?

Teacher: Good guess. This landform is smaller than a mountain. (I am giving them a hint, and also teaching them the distinction between hills and mountains!)

Student: Hill?

Teacher: Right!

And then I place the Word Card under the document camera to show the students the word, definition and photo. Students add the word to their personal Word Wall. Then I have a student place the Word Card in the Word Wall and we move on to the next word. In this way I review words that most of my students already know and I create a place in their brain to hold more words that fit the category of landforms.

Use “Mystery Word” to Introduce Key Vocabulary

The next day, I introduce a Mystery Word that fits in in our category. Mystery Words are always Tier 2 words, and I will spend the majority of my direct instruction time on these words. I choose a word that the students should encounter in reading or other context that day, and I remind them that it fits the category of landform. In the morning, I write the first letter on the board, and then blank lines for each letter (like the game of hangman). As the day progresses, I add a letter here and there until the students guess the word. Often, they guess the word when they encounter it in the text. Then, we look at the Word Card and add it to our Word Wall.

This whole process takes just a few minutes, and ensures that I add at least one Word Card to the Word Wall every day!

Does Direct Instruction Work with a Word Wall?

Yes, absolutely! Tier 3 words are unlikely to be encountered in text, and it can be hard for students to have any context around them that helps them build an understanding of the word. When I want students to learn Tier 3 words, I present them in a quick, direct instruction. I simply tell the kids the word and the definition, and then use it in a sentence. Often I put the Word Wall card under the document camera to also provide the visual. Then, I challenge my students to work together to come up with a sentence of their own, using the target Word Wall Card. Finally, we add the word to the Word Wall.

I generally use direct instruction to present terms from Math, Science and Social Studies. For example, this is what it sounds like when I introduce the vocabulary terms numerator and denominator. I introduce both fraction terms in one lesson, and add both terms to the Word Wall at the same time. I want students to think of those words as connected, but different.

First, I project the Word Card so that all of the students can see the word. (Grab this Word Card as part of my Fraction Word Wall set!)

Teacher: ”Kids, today we are going to begin learning about fractions. One important term that will use frequently is the term denominator. Clap the word denominator with me. How many syllables are there?

Students: Five! Five syllables! Wow!

Teacher: That’s right! The denominator is the number that you find below the fraction line. The denominator tells us how many parts are in the whole. For example, if I cut a cake into 4 equal slices, 4 is the denominator of any fraction I make with the cake pieces. Turn to your neighbor and create a sentence using the word denominator.”

Students turn and talk, and then add the Word to their personal Word Walls. Then, a student adds the word to our classroom Word Wall, and we repeat the process with numerator. The whole process takes about 5 minutes per word. In my introduction of the word, I do NOT ask students to give a definition. Students often confuse denominator and numerator, and I don’t want that confusion to spread because a student introduces the word incorrectly. I am intentional about having the students clap the word so that they say it at least once, and I am intentional with giving them a turn and talk so they say the word again. In addition, I intentionally use the word multiple times in my introduction. In order to own a word, students need to hear it, see it, and use it many times. This introduction gets them started on that process.

Ready to Give Word Walls a Try?

Start by finding the space in your classroom and preparing Personal Word Walls for students. Then, choose important vocabulary from your Science, Social Studies, Math and English units, and prepare the Word Cards. Check out my Word Wall sets on TPT to get you started. Once you’ve done that, you are ready to give it a go!

That’s a quick overview of how I use Word Walls in my classroom. Of course, the power is in the revisiting. More on that in future posts.

In the meantime, grab some of my Word Wall sets on TPT, or make your own. This video previews my Matter Word Wall resource – and there are many, many more just like it in my TPT store. Click the images below the video to jump right to the Word Wall. Here’s to a year filled with Words, Words, Wonderful Words!