A Simple Black Frame Has Inspired Students to Draw Decodable Sounds.
Art has always been my first love, and it is a great way for students to make sound connections to letters, digraphs, spelling patterns, and heart words.
Any space can easily be used for this type of visual-sound encouragement.
I used a lightweight plastic frame with no glass and painted it black. I also colored the tacks black with a large permanent marker so that they were hidden. Now, the focus is on the art and the sounds.
Easy Step to Create a Sound Wall
- Cut the background fabric a little larger than the frame opening.
- Pin or staple the fabric to the wall.
- Place large black tacks in the corner of the frame opening. Let the frame hang on the tacks inside the top two corners.
- Let students draw pictures inside the letters to help them make sound connections. (Try to encourage using the letter shapes to make sound links to relatable words. Example /ee/ bee – might be two bumble bees.)
- Extra tacks are there for students to hang their art.
- Or display the main skill that you are working on for the day.
Lowercase letter g for girl, with braided long hair hanging down.
Some of my younger ESL students were confusing the hard and soft letter g sounds. This is actually very common because of the letter name influence.
The name of the letter G, does have a soft “j” sound and they can instantly relate the name and sound together. I like to correct them by reminding them that they are correct. Sometimes the letter G, does make the “j” sound but it also has a tricky first sound and that is the hard /g/ as in girl.
I created a sample drawing for them, where my girl had brown braided hair flowing down in the shape of a lowercase “g.” The other girls wanted to draw their own versions, adding colored hair, flowers, and crowns. We kept the pictures displayed for a while, and it actually helped some of the other intervention groups who were facing the same difficulty with the “g” sound.
If you don’t want to hand draw all the letters for the students you can print them out. It is very handy to have them ready ahead of time and add a word list on the back to inspire the art. This is my set for Long E.
These pre-made cards can be used to inspire the students with images that relate to the sounds that the letters make.
What to do with the pictures after they draw them?
After the lesson is over, I leave the pictures up for a while. Sometimes I have to take them down for the next group and replace them the next day. It depends on your classroom situation. I teach reading invention, in seven different groups a day.
Some of the groups began creating a sound notebook, gluing the pictures into it. This was a great way to keep the images and lessons organized together. If you think this would be helpful, I have a link to that resource.
Find this on TPT mnemonic images for sounds and spelling patterns.
