A Book Wall?

How many of you have a Word Wall in your classroom?

Do you add words to your Word Wall throughout the year?

Do you keep the same words on the Word Wall all year long?

I had a Word Wall but was never very good at adding words to it all year long. I remember trying to add certain vocabulary words or spelling words some year. Since I taught writing in the 4th grade, there were some years when I would post long lists of more interesting words that could be used for “boring” words like said or big (see Do you use 5 dollar words?).

I came across a design for Word Wall Headings created by a Kindergarten teacher last week: Word Wall Letters. I know that Word Wall are good for vocabulary but started thinking about how they could be used even more for literacy.

What if you put up letters as headings and then students could add the titles of books they read under the letters all year long? You could organize the book titles by author, title, or even topic. There are times throughout the year in math when you need data to graph or develop various ways to organize … keeping track of books read by students throughout the year could provide some data. Students could keep their own “Word Wall Book List” in their folders but contribute to the class list on the modified Word Wall (we might need to come up with a new name for it …).

Students could make predictions at the beginning of the year about the “Book Wall” and even set goals. Seeing blank places on the wall may even encourage students to read books they may not have thought about before. I guess along with the title, students could provide a couple sentences advertising the book for others to read.

Another idea could be to have color-coded genres, so the title of the book is added to a certain colored paper strip based on the genre of that book. Having that visual can be a way to encourage students to read books from a variety of genres throughout the year.

What are some other things we could do with a “Book Wall” modeled after a “Word Wall”?