Pennington Publishing Blog

FREE Sound Wall Resources provide teachers and students much more than colorful bulletin boards or replacements for Word Walls. For students who struggle with making the phoneme (speech sound) to grapheme (print) connection, Sound Walls can be essential tools.

What’s preventing students from learning the phonemes (speech sounds) making the phoneme to grapheme (spelling) connection? Often, it’s inaccurate or inconsistent recognition and production of the speech sounds. After all, if you can’t say ’em, you can’t read ’em and you certainly can’t spell ’em.

Many teachers who have recognized this problem assume that another dose of Heggerty, Barton, or others with phonemic awareness programs (I also have PA drills in my reading intervention programs) will do the trick, but this is not always the solution for all your students. Practicing  phonemic isolation, segmenting, substitution, manipulation, reversals, etc., may not solve the problem if students do not know proper mouth formation and speech articulation. In the past, reading specialists and intervention teachers would refer students who lack these reading prerequisites to speech therapists, and this may indeed be necessary. But, with proper coaching and these FREE Sound Wall Resources, reading teachers can certainly assist most of their students who can’t recognize and produce speech sounds properly.

One  important tool that teachers are using to help students learn or re-learn the speech sounds is the instructional Sound Wall. These FREE Sound Wall Resources consist of the 43-45 phoneme-grapheme cards posted on the classroom wall and organized into two sections: vowels and consonants. Here are the digital sound walls I use in my reading intervention programs (Yes, I’m providing them to you free at the end of this article. And, yes, you can print out the components and create your own Sound Wall in dazzling colors):

Vowel Valley and Consonant Sounds Sound Walls

Vowel Valley

Consonant Sounds

The different phonemes associated with vowels are arranged in a “valley” formation on the wall that looks like the opening of the mouth that happens when the vowel sounds are spoken. Vowel sounds produce unobstructed air flow through the mouth, unlike consonants.

The consonants, organized by “manners of articulation” proposed by Dr. Louisa Moats (2020) are posted as follows:

● Stops – airflow is completely obstructed by the lips
● Nasals – airflow is obstructed in the mouth, but released through the nose
● Affricates – begins as a stop, but ends as a fricative
● Fricatives – air flows, but friction is created by small separations between articulators
● Glides – no friction in the airflow, but changes in sound are produced by the placement of the tongue and lips
● Liquids – the tongue creates a partial closure in the mouth that redirects airflow

Animal Cards

Phoneme-Grapheme (Sound-Spelling) Card Components

Sounds: Sound-spelling cards include sound symbols, indicated by slanted lines. For example, /k/ and /r/. Note that the sounds are not the same as the alphabetic letters. The “c” as in card has the /k/ sound, not a /c/ sound. In my reading intervention programs, I include audio files on each digital card.

Pictures: The phoneme-grapheme cards usually feature a picture which has a name that emphasizes the focus sound. The picture acts as a mnemonic to cement the phoneme-grapheme relationship for students.

Many teachers help students memorize the name of the card i.e., the picture, when introducing the sound indicated on the card. In my reading intervention programs, I teach animal chants, because all of my cards all feature non-juvenile animal photograph. A typical chant would be as follows:

Name?

newt

Sound?

/n/

Spellings: The common sound-spellings are also featured on the cards.  The spellings include blanks to indicate their location within words and to help students select appropriate spellings. For example, if a student is spelling the word, betray, the “ai_” spelling choice would be eliminated from consideration, because the blank indicates that “ai” cannot end a syllable. The “_ay” would be a more informed selection.

FREE Sound Wall Animal Cards

Get the colorful phoneme-grapheme Animal Cards to help students connect phonemes to graphemes and learn proper mouth formation and speech articulation. And, yes, these cards are featured on the FREE Sound Wall Resources and Personal Sound Walls. Plus, I’ve added the 108 most common Heart Word Cards to practice and add to your Sound Wall. Heart words include an irregular sound-spelling i.e. “the part you have to learn by heart.” Note the audio function only works in the reading intervention programs detailed below.

FREE Sound Wall Songs to Teach Proper Mouth Formation and Speech Articulation

To help students remember how to position and move the mouth, I’ve created songs which explain the mouth formations and sound production. The Vowel Valley Chant includes this music, the Animal Chants, and the Vowel Valley graphic representations for each of type of  vowel. The Consonant Sounds Chant also includes this music, the Animal Chants, and the consonant “manners of articulation” graphic representations for each of type of  consonant. 23 minutes of 12 silly, but memorable songs, along with 45 Animal Cards to practice the sounds and spellings for each card. Did I say they are FREE for classroom use. Please don’t post ’em online.

FREE Personal Sound Wall Printables

To add to the traditional vowel valley and consonant sounds wall cards, I would suggest adding separate graphic representations of the sound-print subsections for individual students. I provide 13 Sound Wall Printables in my reading intervention programs, such as in the Fricatives graphic below.

Fricatives: Personal Sound Wall

These “personal sound walls” consist of separate short vowels, long vowels, digraphs, diphthongs, r-controlled vowels, organized in the classic Vowel Valley configuration.  Additionally, I suggest separate graphic representations of the consonant “manners of articulation” (see Dr. Moats’ organization above). My reading intervention programs detailed below include two versions of the Personal Sound Walls: Google slides (with fill-in text boxes and audio files) and printable PDFs to print and laminate. With the laminated copies, students can use dry erase markers to write word examples, erase, and practice again. Download the FREE Personal Sound Wall Printables, print on 11 x 17 paper, laminate, and practice!

Mouth Formation and Movement: A unique feature of the posted sound wall cards and “personal sound walls” is that they also include images (photographs or graphics) of mouths articulating the different phonemes, so that students can make the connection between what a phoneme sounds like and how their mouths are formed and move when they are saying that phoneme.

Teachers may choose to have a mirror nearby so that students may see their own mouths while using the sound wall.

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Thank you for reading my article and, perhaps, using my resources. I’m Mark Pennington, MA reading specialist and author of the following intervention programs for grades 4-adult students.

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 6 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness  2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings Phonics and Heart Words Practice 4. Word Chains 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). 6. Elkonin Sound Boxes, Personal Sound Walls, Multi-Syllabic Word Work. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Grammar/Mechanics affricate, animal cards, digital sound walls, fricative, glides, mouth formation, mouth pictures, nasals, phonics, Sound Wall Songs, sound walls, speech articulation, stop sounds

Voiced and Unvoiced /th/

Teaching the voiced and unvoiced consonant digraphs in the context of beginning reading instruction and reading intervention can be tricky, especially the voiced and unvoiced “th.” Speech therapists and ELL teachers insist that the differences are critically important; reading specialists and special education teachers tend to ignore these as “distinctions without differences.”

As a reading specialist, I usually stay on the practical “whatever works” side of the ledger. However, with respect to this one issue, I think my speech therapist and ELL colleagues have won me over.

My programs focus on older students ages 8–adult, who struggle with reading, and many have problems making the phoneme (speech sound) to grapheme (print) connection. What’s preventing these students from making this connection? Almost always, it’s inaccurate or inconsistent recognition and production of the speech sounds. If you can’t say ’em, you can’t read ’em and you certainly can’t spell ’em.

Regarding the production of the voiced and unvoiced “th,” both are classified as fricative sounds for speech articulation. With the fricatives, “air flows, but friction is created by small separations between articulators” (Moats 2017).

I’ve spent countless training sessions trying to hear and feel the differences in the “th” sounds in beginning, medial, and end positions. I’m not the only one who has problems hearing these sound distinctions, but most of us can hear when a student mispronounces one of them. Here’s the best help I’ve found yet regarding how to differentiate the sounds:

To know if your voice is turned on, try this simple test. Put your hand gently over the front of your throat and breathe. Do you feel anything? No, you shouldn’t. Now, put your hand on your throat and say “ah”. Feel the vibration? That’s because your voice is turned on.

Now, let’s try it with one pair of sounds: S and Z

Put your hand on your throat and say s-s-s-s-s. You shouldn’t feel anything.

Now, put your hand on your throat and say z-z-z-z-z. You should feel the vibration because your voice has to be turned on to make the Z sound.

Your mouth, teeth, and tongue should be in exactly the same position for saying S and Z; you just need to turn your voice off for the S and on for the Z.

Lisa Scott
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/4426340

The exercise works better than the other methods I’ve tried and I love the terminology “your voice has to be turned on.” So much better than “voiced-unvoiced” or “voiced-voiceless” for students (and reading specialists). Now, of course Lisa (and others) has picked the easiest pairing of sounds (/s/ and /z/) to demonstrate and the single consonants seem easier than the consonant digraphs, but starting with what is most clear usually does makes sense.

Now that we understand the difference between sounds with the voice turned on and off, we need to know how to teach them. I’ll provide a few pointers in the context of beginning reading instruction and then follow up with a recommendation for students in reading intervention classes, SPED, and ELL students.

Decoding

Of course, we introduce the voiced and unvoiced consonant digraphs separately. We provide example words and help students blend and segment the sounds. However, we do have a problem. In most phonics (sound-spellings) instructional sequences, we first teach short vowels and single consonants and then turn our attention to the consonant digraphs. And we stick with single syllable words. This certainly has proven the right instructional order over time, but it does limit our example words significantly and, thus, our practice of such in decodable text. Notice, we even have to dip into the King James English to broaden our lists.

The voiced “th_” often is sounded at the beginning of structure (or function words) and is produced by activating the vocal chords. Once you get your teeth and mouth in position, you turn on your motor in your throat with the “th” sounds in these words:

Voiced Decodable “th_” Single Syllable Words with Short Vowels and Single Consonants

this                  that                  them                then                 thus                 than

Voiced Decodable “th_” and Single Syllable Words with Long Vowels-Consonant-Final e

their (long a “ei” spelling)       though (long o “_ough” spelling)

thou                 thee                 thy                   these                those                thine

Voiced Decodable “_the” Single Syllable Words with Long Vowels-Consonant-Final e

clothe              breathe            bathe               teethe

Voiced Non-Decodable Single Syllable “th_” Words

the                   they                 there

The unvoiced “th” is produced by pushing air through mouth and out the lips. There is no motor sound with the “th” sounds in these words; it’s the air that makes the sounds. A “th” sound at the beginning of content words is usually an unvoiced sound.

Unvoiced “th_” at the Beginning of Content Words

*think               thought            theory             thirsty

Unvoiced Decodable Single Syllable “th” Words with Short Vowels and Single Consonants

thin                  thud                 path                 with

Unvoiced Decodable Single Syllable “th_” and Words with Long Vowels and Silent Final e

thief                 thigh                thieves            theme

Unvoiced Decodable Single Syllable “th” Words with Long Vowels, Consonant-Final e, and Consonant Blends

thank               thing                think                growth

Strategic Word Analysis

• Teach students to guess the voiceless “th” in meaning-based words, such as theme, thaw, and both.
• Teach students to guess the voiced “th” between two vowels, such as *bother, worthy, mother, and python
• Teach students to guess the voiced “th” in grammatical words, such as that, they, and then.
• Teach students to guess a voiced “th_” at the start of syllable when it is followed by a short vowel sound. Only a few words, such as thin, thick, and thought are exceptions.
• Teach students to guess an unvoiced “th_” at the start of syllable when it is followed by a long vowel sound. Only a few long vowel words, such as the, these, those, their, and though are decodable exceptions. Add on the sight word there and the King James thou, thee, thy, and thine (if you must) and this is a good generalization.
• Teach students to guess an unvoiced “th_” at the end of a word, such as *month, strength, warmth, teeth, and fifth
• Teach students to guess an unvoiced “th_” in the middle of a word before a consonant, such as *month, bathtub, faithful, and worthless
• When in doubt, guess the unvoiced pronunciation. Other than the list above, most all “th” words are “sound off” pronunciations.
• Other than the low utility long vowel, consonant-final e decodable words listed above, guess an unvoiced “_th” at the end of a syllable.

*Examples from The Ultimate Guide for English Learners

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The Science of Reading Intervention Program includes digital and print sound walls to demonstrate proper mouth position and speech articulation. Additionally, each of the phoneme-grapheme animal cards includes mouth formation pictures to aid proper speech articulation.

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every student in reading intervention needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

SCIENCE OF READING INTERVENTION PROGRAM RESOURCES HERE for detailed product description and sample lessons.

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