Say YES! to Word Walls for Middle School Kids

My first experience with word walls was 2 years ago when I started working at Fall Branch School. I was new to the county and I learned that word walls were to be in all classrooms. I was going to be teaching 7th and 8th grade ELA, so I was new to word walls since only lower grades used them in the previous schools where I worked. I was honestly unsure of how to use a word wall, but I found a place in my classroom for a word wall because I was told to do this. The place I found was at the top of the classroom around the classroom. While this looked really neat at first, it made it impossible for me (I am 5 foot 2 inches!) to put the words up easily. The first thing you want to make sure you do with your word wall is make it accessible to you and the kids. This first word wall was not accessible and I really did not use it efficiently that year even though I tried my best. So, I started doing some research and found out how completely incredible word walls really are because, when used correctly, they help students learn vocabulary words!

The Benefits of Word Walls for All Grade Levels
At first glance, you might not think a word wall is useful for your kids in upper grades, but, let me tell you, they love it, too! There are many benefits to using word walls for kids in upper grades:

• Provide meaningful vocabulary teaching with student engagement 
• Daily contact with the words each day 
• Help improve spelling 
• Provide visual cues for students 
• Allow for interaction with the words through games 

This is a word wall that I like that I found online.

This is how my word wall will look after the first week of
school.  

Getting ready for my own word
wall.  The word cards will have
the number 7 or 8 to show which
grade level the word is for.

What I Changed
Color Coding & Labeling: After doing my own research about word walls, I have decided to jump on the ban wagon and color code my words by week using colored paper. I was going to use colored markers, but I think the colored paper allows the words to stand out more. So, each week, I will use a new color of paper for that week's words. Since each week, we will have 5-6 vocabulary words and I teach 7th and 8th grade, I will be responsible for putting up 10-12 words per week. Since our vocabulary words come from the texts we will be reading in class, obviously 7th and 8th graders will have different words, so I am going to write a 7 or 8 in the right corner of the paper with the word to distinguish which words are for which grades. I hope the kids know, but in case I get confused, this will help me remember.

Alphabetical Order: I am going to put the words on the wall in alphabetical order to make it easier for my kids (and me) to look for certain words on the wall.

Students Have a Personal Dictionary: This year, I am having my kids make a personal dictionary out of a folder with a pocket on each side and the 3 prongs in the middle. They will put paper in the prongs and this will be their personal dictionary. They will include the word, the part of speech, the definition, and a sentence for each vocabulary word in their dictionary. We will have one page per letter and, although the dictionary won't be able to be in perfect alphabetical order, they will at least have all the A words together and so on. Since they have a folder with prongs, it is easy to add paper when they need to add more words.

This is going to be my
personal dictionary. 

We will put notebook paper inside for each letter of the
alphabet to put our words in for our own
personal dictionary.

 Accessibility: Make sure your word wall is easily accessible to you and your students. They need to be able to see the word wall and interact with it. That's right interact with it! There are several games that they can play with the word wall and that is why it is beneficial for vocabulary development.

Once I get my new word wall set up in my classroom for this school year (in just a little over a week), I will update with some pictures of my word wall. Even better, I will update with some photos of my kiddos playing games as they #interact2learn those vocabulary words!

Here is a list of games that you can play with your word wall. The games are in more detail at the link below by Jennifer Cronsberry and I will also be blogging more in the future about vocabulary games with word walls.

Vocabulary Games That Can Be played With Word Walls
Whole Class Activities

• Mystery Word 
• Visiting Word 
• Missing Word 
• Quick Definitions 
• Looking at Spelling 

Small Group Activities

• Word Pictures 
• Word Relationships 
• Word Cards Partner Game 
• Parts of Speech 
• Drama 
• Plurals 
• Word Ad 
• Categories 
• Musical Words 
• Prefixes and Suffixes 
• Contextualization 
• Word Origins and Roots 
• Names for Musical Groups 

Individual Activities

• Definition Bingo 
• Words in Writing 
• Maximum Words in a Story 
• Word Searches

As you can see, there are so many different games that you can have students play to interact with the words. I have heard some teachers who say they don't like letting students "play games" like this because they are never on task. For myself, I just found out that was because I was not properly engaged as the teacher. The teacher needs to be very present in the room and making sure that everyone is on task and the games are being played properly to engage in higher level thinking. Without the interaction and engagement, the games are worthless. You, as the teacher, just want to ensure that each "game" is being properly played because if you just tell them to play it and then sit at your desk, middle school students will probably lose focus on the game. With some teacher involvement and these incredible games, you can't go wrong.

I will update you soon with a current picture of my own word wall once I get it into place.

Testing Vocabulary
My vocabulary test will be each Friday and the color codes will be very helpful when testing.  My goal is to help students actually learn how to use the words, so I will have them use the words in a short writing task.  The task will call for them to use the words I choose and the mentor sentence of the week. (Click here for more on mentor sentences.)  I intend to use the color codes to tell the students which words will be tested that week.  So, I could say that they will be tested on any green word on the word wall and then they are responsible to know the green words on the word wall.  After a few weeks of words, I could tell them that the test will be on any green, blue, or yellow words, which helps to ensure that they are truly learning words as the weeks go on instead of just for the Friday test.

Works Cited
Cronsberry, Jennifer. Word Walls: A Support for Literacy in the Secondary Classroom. 2004.
Click here to visit this PDF for more information about the games.

You can also check out my friend Ashley's blog post about word walls here
She has some incredible posts that you will want to check out, especially if you teach high school English!