In my classroom I do not have a lot of wall space so I use cupboard doors. I turned these doors into my word wall. Under each Dave Matteson letter card is the children's names and environmental print. Then directly across from the letter card is the matching zoo animal letter from zoo phonics.
What is Environmental print? It is the first step to children learning how to read. They begin to recognize logos and the print around their environment. In my classroom I encourage the children to bring logos in from home and then this also turns into a family culture project as well.
I also add the animal letters from the zoo phonics curriculum too. Zoo phonics matches an animal to a letter with a sound and action. For example Aa is Allie Alligator and then you make an alligator mouth with your hands and make the "a" sound to match it. The children love to come up to the wall, find a letter, and say the animal, their name, or point out a logo they can recognize.
What creative ways have you incorporated a word wall?
