While reading, Cunningham and Allington discussed using a word wall to promote fluency. I was very excited about this because I had just finished making the word wall for the kindergarten class I am interning in. The word wall I made only has names. It shows each classmates' name and then has a picture by them. I thought this was great because an earlier article had suggested using familiar words when teaching early learners how to read. The students know one another's name so they are very familiar with the sounds each letter makes in that word.
One thing I read in the book that I thought was a great idea was using different colored paper for each word. This allows students to separate the words they can get confused with like "what" and "where".
One modification I would make to what the book suggests is that I think it is important to print or write the words very neatly on a separate piece of paper then put that one on the colored paper. When printing the word on the separate sheet, you should cut high and low around the letters that dip and rise above the middle line. This shows students that some letters are tall and go to the trees and some are long and go to the dirt.
Word Wall with student names
The teacher cut around the words to show that the l,d, and h all rise up when writing.
I think the word wall with the students names is a great idea! After reading that article about the ELL students and how the word wall worked for them, I am definitely a believer! I think this would work great with your kindergarten students!
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