Hear Here! The Sound Wall and Its Connections to Speech-to-Print Instruction

Children hear and speak before they learn to read. Sound walls can accelerate student's articulatory learning and their production of speech, on the road to becoming proficient readers and spellers. In this episode of Literacy Talks, our trio of literacy experts share their experiences and recommendations for integrating sound walls into regular literacy instruction.

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Transcript

Narrator: 0:03

Hello literacy leaders and champions. Welcome to literacy talks, the podcast series from Reading Horizons dedicated to exploring the ideas, trends, insights and practical issues that will help us create literacy momentum. Our series host is Stacy Hurst, professor at Southern Utah University and Chief Academic Officer at Reading Horizons, we're reading momentum begins joining Stacy are Donell Pons, a recognized expert in literacy and special education and Lindsay Kemeny, a Utah based elementary classroom teacher. Today's topic explores sound walls and their growing value and literacy instruction. Let's get started.

Stacy Hurst: 0:54

Welcome to this episode of literacy talks, I'm Stacy Hurst and I am joined by my co host, Lindsay Kemeny and Donell Pons. And today we are going to be talking about sound walls. So we're gonna dive right in. This was actually my subject. So I'm going to start with a question for both of you. So we'll just go in alphabetical order by first name. To answer the question, so Donell, starting with you, how would you describe what a sound wall is?

Donell Pons: 1:28

Okay, good. Well, I It's funny, you should ask me that, because I had pulled out my speech to print by Dr. Louisa Moats because I think that's a fantastic book. And if you're not familiar with this speech to print, which sound walls definitely are, then that's a great book of great resource. And we'll list it in the notes. We've mentioned it before. And it's a book I would have absolutely purchase. And at the back of the book, of course, speeches mentioned throughout, but at the back of the book, pages 271 to 72. Stacy, you and I've already chatted about this. There's some really great background information on sound walls. So if you don't know you're curious, you've had him explained, you're still a little unclear. This is a fantastic resource. And as always, I credit Dr. moats for being so clear with information and she lays it out very, very well. But she's talking about how why would I substitute a sound wall for a word wall. And so maybe I'm gonna lean into what somebody is familiar with to describe what a sound wall is to give some reference points. So probably teachers are very familiar with a word wall. Many of them have used a word wall in order to teach students you have things that are familiar or similar in spelling that you might put together on a word wall, students are definitely looking at letters for this. And Dr. Moat says, instead of using a classroom wall to post a list of high frequency words, under each letter of the alphabet, as is often done in elementary classrooms, the teacher would create a sound wall for consonants and vowels. So it's, it's very much just that the heart of it, we're gonna get more complicated, obviously, but the heart of it, that's what we're doing, we're gonna lean into those sounds instead. And so a single high frequency graphic is introduced for each phoneme, gradually other common graphemes, we're talking letters here, what you write are added as they are learned. So that's the essence of it. The sound well, Lindsay, I'm, I'm dying to hear what you've got to add to that.

Lindsay Kemeny: 3:14

Yeah. So to me that sound well is just a reflection of our speech to print instruction. You know, it's where we foster an awareness of those speech sounds. And so to me, though, like the wall itself, is not the main thing. That's not the main event in the classroom. It's the instruction that goes along with it. And I think that is kind of like, where the magic happens, kind of as is in our instruction.

Stacy Hurst: 3:44

I love both of those answers. And I'm going to kind of lead with a quote that we've all heard before, at least I think most of us have by Steven Pinker. And he says children are wired for sound, but print is an optional accessory that must be painstakingly bolted on. And Lindsey just like you were saying, I see sound walls as a tool to help that happen. And of course, he's talking about what needs to happen in the brain for proficient reading, which goes back to what Danelle was talking about the importance of focusing on those phonemes and that speech to print connection, which, you know, not to get into the history of anything, but reading is a relatively new technology and we, we speak before we read, that's just developmentally how we are as humans. And Daniel, you mentioned a sound wall versus a word wall, and I have talked about this before on this podcast, but I was really good at the word wall guys. And I too bad this isn't a visual format, but I really had a lot of space for word wall and I embraced it. I really did the word wall thing, that tool All was not as useful for helping my students learn how to read. But sound walls are. So Lindsay, did you have a word wall?

Lindsay Kemeny: 5:09

I did? Yeah. And you can see, you know, as you use it, you can kind of see the the problems with it right? You have a brand new maybe a little kindergartner who wants to spell the word that and looks up at the word wall to help them? And how are they going to know to look under the letter T? I mean, they're not unless they already have learned that th spells. And if they already know that they probably don't need the word Well, you know, in the first place. So you can kind of see it comes from the word wall comes more from a teacher perspective than learner perspective. Yeah,

Stacy Hurst: 5:45

that makes a lot of sense. Daniel, you were shaking your head.

Donell Pons: 5:48

Yeah, I was just gonna remark that I work with adults, right? I work with older students. That's mainly what I do all day long. And it's interesting, because the majority, I'm going to say all because I haven't really ever met anyone who was ever introduced to reading and spelling through sounds at all. All of my students have been introduced by looking at letters and trying to make sense of the letters. And I liken it to learning to swim in many ways. And that is you have the same elements, water that someone and and yourself, and you're supposed to work with this water in order to learn to swim. But if you have not been taught the basic elements of what it is you're doing with the water and the strokes, then you can be in the water and flounder, helplessly, you're in the same element. And someone else next to you, who has been taught what the element is and what they're supposed to do in the element with the element. And they make this look like you were born to be in there. And how can this be that we're both have the same body, we're both in this element of water, and it looks so vastly different. And that's what oftentimes I think, in my mind, once an adult student, we start getting from the sound perspective introduced, suddenly, they look like a swimmer. And before they were absolutely drowning in sounds. And it's interesting, they know what to do with them for the first time. Yeah, I

Stacy Hurst: 7:10

think that's important as well in the way that we instruct using a sound wall. And we'll get into that next when we were talking about the difference between talking about something and actually experiencing it in the way that we learn it we know that when really important part of instruction is to present it in a way that our students can file it cognitively, in their long term memory and access it when needed. So we don't just have a sound wall, we interact with it. It can be said that it's I like the term multimodal, but most of us have probably heard multi sensory. So when I mentioned that sound walls are multimodal, Lindsey, how do you respond to that? In what ways do we involve our students in that instruction?

Lindsay Kemeny: 7:57

Oh, a lot of different ways. When you're talking, it reminds me like anyone can throw a poster up on the wall, right? But there's so much more to a sound wealth than that. And the more you use it and interact with it, the more your students will. But when I think of that multimodal, it's kind of reminding me of how we are drawing students attention to the articulatory gestures that we make when we produce those phonemes. So we're saying, you know, what's, what's your mouth doing? What is your tongue doing? What are your lips doing, and we don't have to get super technical, right. But we're just drawing that awareness to the phoneme. And there is research, where they show that instruction in phonemic awareness that includes the articulatory features that's especially effective in facilitating word reading processes. And I have both of the studies, there's one in from 2009 went from 2011 by Linnea, airy, and some others that that talk about that. So that's what I like to do is kind of let's talk about what our mouth is doing. And then let's connect it to the letter because the sound wall is not just about sound. It's also you know, there's no point in having to me a poster with just like, you know, pictures of your mouth, you've got to also connect it to the letter. It's a sound spelling. Well. Yeah, that's

Stacy Hurst: 9:17

a great point because that is the whole point. Right? We don't want to teach it in isolation by any means. Danelle, again, vigorous nodding, what do you have to add to that?

Donell Pons: 9:27

I'm going to stop nodding.

Stacy Hurst: 9:30

Good. Just see the wills in your brain earning and so I just want to peek inside of what's happening inside your brain.

Donell Pons: 9:38

You know, I'm gonna add to you know, Lindsey, what you were saying about making sure you're connecting it to those graphenes. Remember when I talked about working with adult students, they have all of that write with younger ones, you might have a little more leeway with how much introduction to the graphing the letter that they have and that they know you're going to be doing a lot of introduction that way. But I am definitely working with someone who already has all of that just haven't known what to do with it in many ways, it's been all jumbled up and confused. And so I can see very clearly, that the sound all by itself without connecting, you know, definitely, and immediately to the graphing isn't useful for those individuals, right. And I have to move more quickly to I would say as well with adults, because they're being asked to do tasks that are are very high level every day in their job in school. And so I don't have the luxury of of waiting and delaying to introduce different concepts, right, they do come together very quickly and systematically together.

Stacy Hurst: 10:35

And do you know, that's what I was thinking? When, as Lindsey was talking as well, using sound walls is just an efficient way to teach the organization of our speech sounds. And once you have those 44 Sounds organized in a manner that are easy to digest and get into long term memory. It makes attaching those over 250 spelling's graphemes. For those sounds so much easier. I think about the way I used to teach phonics before I really digested the National Reading Panel research. And it was pretty haphazard. And no wonder that my students, I felt like I was repeating myself over and over and over, because there was no systematic nature to it. So that is important element. When we're talking about teaching sound walls in our classroom,

Donell Pons: 11:29

and the Stasi, on my dad, I, you know, just thinking again, I've had some real connections watching my, my children learn how to swim because I just saw a lot of connections to learning your watch very quickly. But I don't know anyone who when they are placed in water just sits there with their arms and legs really tight and straight. Your instinct is to move them. Now, we instinctually when we have those sounds, we've learned those, we know them, right? You come to school, you have speech, you've been speaking for a long time, that's natural. And then somebody explains to you how to take that natural ability and make it connect to these graphemes or letters. And to me that's like an excellent swim teacher who says yes, that instinct to move the arms and legs. Let me show you how to do that efficiently. Here's how we do that to get across the pool. Wow, that's really different from just flailing around with my arms and legs. So again, it's leaning into those things that we understand from the science of reading. Remember, this is a lot of research that goes into this isn't just saying, This looks like a good way to teach, right? We're we're talking about a lot of science and research. When we're discussing this topic, too. I think that's important to those that we we make sure people remember that. Yeah, it's

Stacy Hurst: 12:34

built on the backs of a lot of researchers who've helped us to understand this. And I think that's a an apt analogy, when we're talking about swimming, because the other thing about speech sounds even though students have been co articulating those, you know, as early as nine months, in some cases, making them aware of the individual speech sounds is really important. And then in our phonemic awareness instruction, we're going to ask them to do tasks like blending, and segmenting those phonemes. And again, not for the sake of doing that. But because that based on research is the most important tasks that are most directly related to reading and spelling. Lindsay.

Lindsay Kemeny: 13:13

So I like how you said, you know, you said it's not just for the task of blending and segmenting, like, that's not the point. It's to help reading and I feel the same with sound walls. And I feel like sometimes I see people kind of miss this point where we're not just teaching a sound wall for the sake of a sound wall. We don't need to say memorize all the 44 sounds, what are all the fricatives? You know, they don't need to have those memorized, we have to remember that it is a tool along the way to get to proficient reading and spelling, and that is the target proficient readers, proficient spellers, and sound was just a tool to help us do that.

Stacy Hurst: 13:52

Yeah, it makes that speech sound system visible in a way that kids can access it, right? I've seen I've been in classrooms where students are writing and they look at the sound wall to determine which spelling to use for a sound, you can see their mouse moving. As they're writing them down. It's fun to see. So Lindsay, how long have you been using a sound wall in your classroom?

Lindsay Kemeny: 14:17

I've been using a sound wall for four years in my classroom. So my two years in kindergarten and two years in second grade,

Stacy Hurst: 14:26

and what are some of the biggest things that you've noticed? You already mentioned? You used a word while before two and I'm just gonna humbly state I don't think you did it as well as I did. Again, I was the queen of the word.

Lindsay Kemeny: 14:39

You were I've heard your stories. It's just

Stacy Hurst: 14:44

so unfortunate that that was the case. But anyway, what what do you see is the major difference and what benefits have you seen in real life

Lindsay Kemeny: 14:56

with your Yeah, well, the first kind of difference I think is more in my instruction. Because once I put it up there, you know, I feel like I was a little more clear, and it was a little more, I don't know, it's more explicit and could understand a little bit more what I'm doing here, I'm teaching these, these sounds, and then I'm teaching, you know, the graphemes that go with it. And I think, you know, the first year I had it up, I learned a lot. And in fact, I just made my own sound wall, initially, and I made my own graphic cards, and I took pictures of my own kids mouse and put it up there. And then just this last year, it's just been the last year where I had, I was piloting the reading horizon sound ball that I love. And then for the first time, I had lessons that were written that I could use, which, you know, I love because before that, I'm just kind of shooting from the hip and making it up. And now I have these, Here's a little lesson and it's only like, I don't know, two or three minutes long. And it's this great segue into our phonics instruction. And so I just, I feel like, my students are more tuned in now to the phonemes. And the spelling's and, you know, I've just, there's been, it's been neat to see, like, I remember, I was sitting at my small group table, you know, working with my kids there, and I have other kids at their desks, and have one little boy who's over at his desk, and he was in the, like, a software program. And I could see, I can see his iPad from where I'm sitting, and I know he's supposed to be putting th worth, if you can hear me, hopefully, watch us with the TH sound. And, and so I he was looking over at me, but I'm like in small group, I can't go over there. And I pointed out my mouth and I kind of made with I put my tongue between my teeth, like the TH sound like and he like, like, I'm asking, Is that what you're looking for? And he just nods. And then I just point at the mouth picture on the sound wall where, you know, that's matches what my mouth is doing. And then points below the th. And then his eyes just light up. You know, he's like, Oh, yes. And he nods. And then he, you know, he goes over and he can put it in. And I thought that was so awesome. Because I mean, the whole encounter was like 15 seconds. But he was like, oh, yeah, okay, that's the th and so, you know, where's he going to look next time he knows right where to look. And course soon after, he just knew that and didn't have to look anymore. But so it's neat to see them, kind of make those connections and to use it. And I had just yesterday a little boy asked me if he could get you know, his private sound wall out, you know, because he's a little bit farther from our wall. And we have little individual cards. And so he's set that up. Right against his water bottles. It was like his own little sound wall on his desk was so cute. And then he was writing and using it. And I had a snap a picture because I thought it

Stacy Hurst: 17:54

was so so cool. Well, it's just so fun. You know, I've used with a first grader. And you mentioned the Reading Horizons sound wall. They come with tiny little like playing card size, mouth pictures to which I had never really seen before. But I can lay those out, sound by sound with a word and have students try to figure out what the word is just by the mouth placement. And then they can attach the grapheme. And we did that the other day. Well, a few weeks ago now with the word bench. And they were able to figure out what word that was just based on that, which helps me to remember another really important part of research because part of sound while instruction is really focusing on the production of those phonemes. And we get mares out right and we have we talked about qualities like voiced sounds and voiceless sounds and placement of your tongue and your mouth. And I have heard some teachers say that superfluous, right? There's just a lot of work. And why do we do that? A, it's a multi modal way to get that instruction into their long term memory. But most importantly, we know from research, that's how the brain recognizes those phonemes. So when you're attaching that to the graphemes, that's a little bit more automatic of a process. And just to illustrate the importance of teaching those sounds and then connecting the graphemes to them. So speech before print is the fact that and you mentioned this to Lindsay I was so happy that Reading Horizons which is a phonics program, a company that has a phonics methodology is offering a sound wall because then you connect those two right so you already teach those sounds you help students become aware of them. And then when you're teaching phonic elements like the CH grapheme, you start with the phoneme that you've already taught, and you're just making those connections. We're doing that What Steven Pinker said, painstakingly bolting on those graphemes to the phonemes well, and

Lindsay Kemeny: 20:07

it makes sense to have a phonics company have a sound while like they should go together, right? It's, I think it's great because I see, you know, we see our poster, like, you look at the vowel Valley, and there's all these different graphemes. And, you know, throughout the program, you're going to teach all those. So I like that connection. And my students just love it. Because, you know, beginning of the year, I put little post it notes, sticky notes over all the spelling's and then as I teach them, we take them off, and they're so excited. And you know, if there's still you know, at the end of the year, we have everything, I think everything off. Yeah, there might be, there might be one, you know, one still on there, but they're just kind of like what's under that one? What, Which one have we learned, and they're so excited. And when I used it previously, where I had just made my own little graphing cards and everything. I didn't put all the spelling's on there, well, I just put, you know, a couple on each, and then they would get upset, like, what we need to add, you know, ey on the a spelling because they see the word day all the time, you know, and hey, and so I remember I wrote it on, okay, we will write it on. We're so excited about that. So it's fun to see them get involved. Yeah. And

Stacy Hurst: 21:20

they're really getting into language a deeper level, right. And as you're talking Lindsey, I'm being reminded of the thing that's come up so many times, with younger students, they're so much more excited about these things. And then I'm gonna segue to my students who are pre service teachers. And I will just tell you, when I introduce the phonemes, and then we, first of all, they have no idea that there are 44 sounds in English, they I asked him that at the beginning of the class, and they, you know, I have anywhere from like, 26 to, like 1000s, but it helps them make sense of it. These are pre service teachers, but that's one of their greatest insights. And that's when I start to see that excitement about language and actually teaching reading, and they become more confident when we talk about how this kind of instruction is delivered and why it's so important, and that it's so manageable. Right. So Darnell, I want to ask you about how you use this with your the students that you work with.

Donell Pons: 22:23

So I was just going to say that adult students haven't had the opportunity to be introduced to a sound while when they were younger, if they you know, if a teacher even would have back then I know it's become thankfully more popular as people have begun to gravitate towards the science of reading. But I've noticed that when I have introduced with my students in mind, you were on Zoom. So we have gone to zoom because of COVID. And then because I picked up a lot of students that geographically we're not close, we've maintained the zoom. And that's been interesting. So you have to really establish making sure that everybody is participating, everybody's cameras are on because this is very much a multimodal, as you say experience, can't just turn your camera off and be experiencing this. And then I started off with letters that I knew they were introduced to. And then we've made a switch over to the articulation pictures of the mouth. And I wondered if this would be difficult for adult students, older students. But what's interesting, maybe two weeks into it, I noticed that if I was still using some of the letter cards, the students would say, can we see those mouth pictures? So great. They requested them because they felt like they were getting further with the mouth picture, which was really interesting. It was a lot easier for them to be able to maintain sounds had been confused by and then something else that I think has gone along with working in this whole area with sound walls. Dr. motes has been really she's not the only one. But she's been one to say that letters do not make sounds. They represent them. And I used to just push back on that guy. Oh, good heavens, come on. Can't we just say, Hey, God, so used to that. But I get it. Now finally, I have to work with it. I was resistant. But I get it now, especially my adult students have helped me see why that little distinction is important. Because my students have said, Hey, wait a minute, if that makes that sound, then why can that one make the same sound? And I thought oh, that's so interesting. You I changed that phrasing, and said represents and then they're like, Oh, there's more than one representation. Okay. Just that little thing for even an adult learner was kind of interesting, and I hadn't really thought there was much to it.

Narrator: 24:30

Most reading teachers know all about word walls. And now sound walls are quickly capturing our eyes and ears because they help students make the connection between letters and sounds and how to produce those sounds as they read aloud. Enhanced with technology. sound walls give students more opportunity to practice making speech to print linkages. Have you ever used sound walls? Are you curious about how they can work in your classroom? Share your experiences in questions with us and join us again for literacy talks. To keep current with upcoming Reading Horizons events, go to www dot reading horizons.com/company/events.

Stacy Hurst: 25:13

So, considering that as teachers, we are also adult learners. And there was a little bit of laughter when you made that comment Danelle about letters making sounds because we've had this conversation very energetically before among the three of us. But I have maintained all along. And I, of course, I'm always I always think it's safe to align with Dr. motes. I mean, who wouldn't? But I think what I've seen with my pre service teaching students is that when I use that terminology, yes, that's important for the students, the young learners, the beginning readers, to understand that concept. But it's even more important for the person teaching them to understand that concept. So just by using that terminology, instead of what sound does this letter make helped my teachers or the pre service teachers understand the importance of that concept. So yeah, that's a really important point. And then Darnell, I wonder too, if you would speak and Lindsey, of course, you can speak to this too. We know that for students with learning differences, like dyslexia, sometimes the reason that they struggle with reading or print specifically, is because of a phonological what we've termed in the past is a falling illogical deficit. Right. So how do sound walls help support a dyslexic reader?

Donell Pons: 26:33

Oh, yeah. So I think it's really interesting. There's, there's a lot of a lot of different things that you pick up and learn about how important sound is to this whole thing that we do with letters. When you help someone who has dyslexia. Not every dyslexic individual individual has dyslexia, will have as big an issue with sounds as others. So remember that dyslexia is on a spectrum, right? So you can have students who struggle a lot with sounds students who struggle a little with sounds, and some students who do quite well, with sounds actually I my husband, who has dyslexia has always been terrific with rhyme, which is interesting, and a lot of other folks with dyslexia aren't great with rhyme. And so you also have to be flexible with your understanding, and be willing to work with a lot of different students and accept that there's a difference there. And then I think what's really important is, especially with older students who have struggled with this, to realize that because like you said, from the very beginning, that speech is natural for us, we've all been speaking, right, we're picked it up, unless there's an issue with our being able to hear and articulate those sounds, we're going to do it do the thing, that no one has really laid that down as the foundation for learning the letters for them before, that's just been a side thing. That hasn't really been the focal point that if you can speak great, we're going to be able to attach this to what you can already do, we have this skill. And then when you're working with the sounds with a phonemic awareness curriculum and the sound wall, what that really is doing is giving the individual with dyslexia an opportunity to lean into a skill set they have and can and can be improved, because we know that's an area for folks who have dyslexia that we can see definite improvement in, there are other things that are more difficult, that can be impacting being able to read and write that may be harder to intervene on. Right I ran is one where we have long conversations about ran. But phonemic awareness, there are definite things we can do to help improve that. And so those are just some of the key pieces I see. For folks who have dyslexia,

Lindsay Kemeny: 28:34

I think it's really common for them to, you know, well for a lot of students to confuse vowel sounds. And so this year, I have a little boy in my class who does have severe dyslexia and mixes up air. And if and if you look at the vowel Valley, and you find where it is, and where it is there, pretty close, there's like one sound between them. And it's a lot of times those sounds that are close on the on the valve Valley chart that are easy to confuse. And so for this little boy, you know, we I showed him those math, mouth pictures, and we really had to lean in to what our mouth feels like the difference between air and it and of course, when he says those normally, he doesn't articulate, like he doesn't exaggerate, like maybe they're a little exaggerated on the sound wall. So we kind of have to practice that where I'd have to say, Oh, look at my mouth, look at my mouth, the word is big, it Yeah. And kind of like point out what my mouth is doing. And then using those little, like you said, those little individual playing cards with the mouse and, and, and, and showing those, you know, working with those was helpful for him too. And then of course attaching it to the letter and doing practice going back and forth between the two letters.

Donell Pons: 29:49

And I love Lindsey what you've just said, because Because Lindsey is using all of these tools, notice how she's able to first of all, see who is struggling, right because you are doing the very things that are The foundational parts of why the student is going to struggle with reading and spelling. So Lindsey is able to spot that. And then she has tools, right, because she's able to spot it. She also knows what she's seeing. She has tools. And I think it's interesting Lindsey, to be specific about the student has a more severe case of dyslexia, you're going to Lindsay sees patterns which I see two, the same patterns, the E, the short E and the short I sound. That's a very difficult sound for students who have a more severe case of dyslexia. And so then Lindsey does that very thing you're going to do with the tools you have go into the articulation features, and you're really going to emphasize that with a student not only producing themselves, but also watching production. And that's the ticket right there. And I use the same things, Lindsay just use the same things I'm going to use with an older student. See, that's fantastic. Yeah, which

Stacy Hurst: 30:46

is aligned with the fact that a proficient reader, their brain is functioning in the same way every proficient reader. So when we put instruction in a way that facilitates that brain development, that's what we're doing. Yeah. And you know, when we think eat well, specifically at an ear, and I know, I've worked with students before, who even with the articulatory features, it's subtle, this is a subtle difference. Like you mentioned, Lindsey, there's a reason they're placed on Val Valley next to each other. But there is also research supporting using a key word. And so that is also something you would see on a high quality sound wall, right? We have key words to draw a student's attention to that, or articulatory gestures, or kinesthetic cues for those as well,

Lindsay Kemeny: 31:32

right, like, sure is like itch, there's a little picture of a dog itching on the Reading Horizons when and so then you can have them itch, you know, do a little bit on their arm to help them remember. And same with I think that oh, the edge is looking over the edge, you know, for E or E and so you can kind of do a movement, you know, for that to help them.

Stacy Hurst: 31:53

Yeah, which is very helpful. And then I don't want to end this episode without talking about the value of this kind of an instructional tool for English language learners. And I have seen this firsthand when I taught the English language development classes with our ELL students at my school by focusing on those phonemes ones that are produced similarly in their first language. And comparing them it makes teaching English so much more efficient and make more sense to them. And of course, we're never going to not attend to meaning as we're focusing on putting these sounds together and creating words, but it actually gives them access to that meaning even faster to because they don't have to go through all of those I what I termed mental gymnastics, to get to the right pronunciation and make sure that's accurate. And then to think about the meaning they can access those phonemes really proficiently and then focus on the meaning of the words that they're, they're reading.

Lindsay Kemeny: 32:58

Yeah, I had a little student who's just two weeks ago, and he you know, Spanish is his first language. And he was just really excited to come tell me, you know, Mrs. Kennedy, in Spanish, the letter I says, this sound, you know, I can't remember what it was. But I was just like, That is so neat. And we kind of had this conversation, and then how, how neat, it was the Spanish language and the English language, and just how interesting that was the comparison, it was so fun.

Stacy Hurst: 33:25

And you're setting that student up for success in both languages. That's what I love. I know my students specifically that spoke Spanish as their first language. The book and phonemes were something we always focused on, because that sound of but is not as No, it's, that's not as common in Spanish. And so just helping them understand the differences. Like I loved to hear how they talked about that afterwards. And then we'd already talked about this. But Danelle, you made the point, we can see students who are struggling oftentimes that manifests itself in their spelling, and their reading. But sound walls give us a really great way to address that instruction, we do have a Morpho phonemic language, and sound walls cover easily that phonemic part, right, so phonetic part that we can make those connections between phonemes and graphemes that represent those

Lindsay Kemeny: 34:21

Well, I was just thinking when you were saying that about you know how the sound well can be really helpful for English learners. I'm excited for next year, because I'll be able to so I also piloted the software side of the Reading Horizons sound well, although I didn't get until the end of the year. So I'm really excited for the beginning of the year, but I was just thinking, you know, because it goes through kind of confirms or like, I don't know, reviews, what you just taught in class, and then they get to go on to the app, and it's going to do a quick little review of each phoneme and how great that would be for an English learner, you know, to learn all those sounds in sounds varlyn Language first, you know, we just had, you know, the teacher next door to me just got a little refugee, Ukrainian refugee in her class, and she doesn't speak any English. And I was just thinking, Oh, I wish I got her in my class, because I could totally just let her have some experience in that software for the sound well, and it would teach her all those sounds that we've already learned, you know, and then it would just help her as she's learning the language. So

Stacy Hurst: 35:26

yeah, and the use of technology is another episode, right. But just quickly to say, one way that we use technology in our classroom is to give students more practice and application. And that sound wall is amazing for that we only have one teacher in a classroom. But that software can help magnify and expand the reach of a teacher because the students get more quick instruction and application and practice. So

Lindsay Kemeny: 35:55

my students love it. And then they get to you know, they listen to the little lesson, and then they get to take a picture of their mouth, you know, on the iPad, and then it will automatically populate onto their own little sound wall with their own mouth pictures, which they just get so excited about. They love that. Oh, I'm sure.

Stacy Hurst: 36:13

No, get little kids are not egocentric. Yeah, it's the very first selfie right there. Just focus on there. Yeah. But yes, so many great tools that we can use to teach reading. And so just in conclusion, what advice would you give it to people who are new to the concept of a sound wall? So no.

Donell Pons: 36:35

So I would say when we started with that reference speech to print, if you haven't purchased the book speech to print, I think that's a great start, if you're looking for a resource, and then you can just start working your way through it, right. So don't think you have to take it all on at once, I'd go to the back and look up sound walls and start there, if you're looking for sound walls, and then you can fill in with the information. I know letters training, a lot of teachers are taking letters training, that will touch on sound walls as well. But I think having additional information is important. And then like Lindsey and both of you have mentioned, it's really nice to have if available. When you have a phonics program or something like Reading Horizons, that's us now use that with adult students. And they provide and I'm hoping more do a sound wall that then has little pieces for you. Because like Lindsey said, it's so much easier to have that just provided Where do my quick lesson, and I've had to take some pieces and adapt for older students, but I'm thrilled to have pieces to adapt, right? It's so much better to have something to adapt for older students rather than nothing that you have to start from scratch, those would be my thoughts.

Lindsay Kemeny: 37:35

I would say, you know, like I said, kind of at the beginning. Keep in mind the overall goal of a sound while it's not a sound while for sound while sake, it's to help build these proficient readers and spellers. And so keep that in mind. That's like, you know, that's the target. And you don't need to, you know, don't get carried away and do a 20 minute lesson on just the sound well, right and are just the phoneme we want to connect that phoneme to the graphene. And the sound Walsh, you know, is is a tool to help us do that.

Stacy Hurst: 38:09

Fantastic, and it's a fun way. I think it engages students and it's fun for them for that kind of instruction. So I guess we can say it provides a sound foundation for reading and spelling. So punny. So on that hilarious note, we'll end this episode by thanking you for joining us and wishing you all the luck in whatever setting you're in your teaching. Reading. It really is the best gift that we can give anyone. So thank you for joining us and we will see you next time on literacy talks.

Narrator: 38:45

Thanks for joining us today for literacy talks, the podcast series for literacy leaders and champions everywhere. Literacy talks comes to you for Reading Horizons where reading momentum begins. Join us next time