Word Walls and Word Rings FREE FILE

This post is all about word walls and word rings.  Be sure and read all the way to the bottom where you can grab it all in a FREE file.

 Word Walls

Ever have this happen...You just sat down at your small group table. One of your kiddos asks, "Mrs. Adsit, how do you spell____?"  You don't want to just tell him, you want to teach him how to figure it out. You get up and move to the word wall. You show him how he can find the word under the letter it begins with. You return to your small group table. If that sounds all too familiar, read on!
I decided to color code the words so that there is only one word on each color of paper under any given letter. For example, under the letter "a" there is one word on red, one on green, one on blue, etc. Now when they ask, I can say, "it's the red word under "a"! No more getting up from small group! You can grab my color coded word wall at the bottom of this post in a FREE download.  It also has the rings of words discussed below and a parking lot for new words!

 Word Rings

To Next, I wanted to make individual word rings for each of my kids. That way, no matter how many words are on the way, their ring will have 70% of known material and only 30% of unknown material.  To get started, I made a list of all the sight words in the order that I am going to add them to the word wall. I show each child list one to see if they know any of the words. I highlight the words. Then, I make a ring for each child. On their ring I put all the words that I highlighted and then I cross them out. I also add a few new words.
Each day I have them read their words to me. If they miss only 1, I have them put it in the “1” basket, if they miss “2” they put it in the “2” basket. If they miss 3, I have them hang them back up.
Now I can add words so that they have 3 words that they do not know. Some children will have as few as 5 words and others over 100! Here’s my storage system.

Homework

Before school starts, I make a folder for each week. I put the sight words that are going to be added to the word wall, the parent letter, my academic vocabulary words, and the environmental print words that I am going to add!

Games to Practice

Roll, Say, Keep is a GREAT game! You can use it with any content that you can put on a set of cards. This picture shows the game with abc's, but, it can also be played with their ring of words.  Give the kids a game board. Have them take their words and put one word in each of the six boxes. Roll a dice. Find the square with the dice face that matches the dice. Read the word on the card in that box.  Put the word in a pile and add a new word in the empty box.