SOUND WALL PRODUCTION DIARY

 

PRODUCTION DIARY #5
8/7/2020

Our new Sound Wall is in it’s final stages of completion. In this final production video diary, we go over all the sound wall cards and share what's next. We are in the home stretch! Thanks for following along and stay tuned!

PRODUCTION DIARY #4
7/2/2020

Get an update on what we have done up to this point for our Sound Wall. We are excited to share the most recent completed drawings.

Then, come behind the scenes of our “creative process” as we brainstorm more ideas, illustrations, and sentences for our new Sound Wall! This video shows our true personalities and is uncut! We hope that you enjoy and we are excited about adding these new designs to our Sound Wall that will be available before school begins.

PRODUCTION DIARY #3
5/25/2020

In this sound wall discussion, we are on the go! First, we take a look at the inked illustrations for nine sounds - liquids, glides, and nasals. Then, we brainstorm what illustrations we will create for the unvoiced stop sounds.

We come up with whole sentences using each of the sounds and use that sentence to build each illustration. This helps maximize the usefulness of the image in reinforcing each sound. Plus, it makes us think!

Thank you for coming along with us!

PRODUCTION DIARY #2
5/16/2020

In this second meeting about the sound wall, we discuss the progress made with liquids, glides, and nasals.

We want to maximize the most out of the space with as many visual clues as possible. We want the image to have a sentence that teachers can orally say as they uncover and teach the sound. For example, for the liquid L sound, “Leon the Lion likes large lemons.”

These nine images are ready to ink! We’ll record it for you to see how images get inked from pencil drawings.

PRODUCTION DIARY #1
5/6/2020

This is our first “official” meeting where we discuss what we want to accomplish with the sound wall redesign.

  • size options for teachers and students

  • layout for optimal space and ease of use and viewing

  • categories of sounds

  • how the cards will work with the visual clues and designs

  • overview of some of the images that will be drawn

2018 / 2019 sound wall in my classroom

In the 2018 / 2019 school year our school district implemented the use of the sound wall as part of our approach to the science of reading. This school year, Jeff and I took the sound wall pieces and added visual clue elements to make the presentation friendlier and more engaging for my first graders.

It was tremendously effective with my students! It is amazing to see 6 and 7 year old children find and identify phonemic concepts using academic language. They can tell me exactly where the sounds are and why there are there!

Other teachers expressed interest in using this tool in their classrooms. One problem: this sucker that we originally designed is HUGE, 5’ x 10’ and in many pieces. So many pieces.

We have hindsight and a plan to redesign this to make it easier to share with other teachers without a headache and a hassle! We thought it would be fun to document our progress and show you how we work through this process. Until it is finished, we will post updates and behind the scenes activity in this Production Diary Blog, so come along!

 
 
Melissa Spenceclassrooms, phonics, sounds, letters, phonemes, graphemes, sound wall, rise, science of reading, visual clues, elementary school, illustration, design, production, readingComment