In this post: Learn the importance of Science of Reading aligned personal file folder sound walls for each student and grab your own copy of my free personal sound wall to use in your classroom!
If you’ve been around for a while, you’ve probably already figured out how much I LOVE sound walls. But if not – check out these posts to get an idea:
How to Use a Sound Wall in the Classroom
If you need a refresher on them, sound walls provide students with a unique way of learning and documenting phonemes or speech sounds.
Combining phoneme cards, real photo mouth pictures, and key images; sound walls can replace the traditional word wall as one of the best practices for teaching individual phonemes to young learners. (You can check out the posts above to learn more about the purpose of a sound wall!)
One thing I haven’t shared too much about is the importance of each student having their very own copy of a sound wall.
Keep reading to learn more and grab your own copy of my FREE personal sound wall printable to use with your students!
What is a File Folder Sound Wall?
Generally, a sound wall display is placed on your classroom wall. Sound walls are hung at the beginning of the year and are buildable, which means that as teachers introduce new consonant and vowel sounds to their students, they add those new phoneme cards to the sound wall for students to reference.
While classroom sound walls are great, students may also benefit from having their own file folder sound wall for independent use.
File folder sound walls are smaller, printable sound walls that are affixed to a file folder.
They are a great visual aid for students who may be sitting across the classroom or just need their own chart that they can reference as needed.
Students can use file folder sound walls for many different reasons. Here are a few:
- To help students see phonemes up close and more clearly (this includes seeing the images for proper mouth formation)
- To provide students with their own individualized sound wall with the sounds that THEY are working on
- To introduce new sounds to students in small groups or independently
- To give individual students targeted practice with specific phonemes
- To save classroom space
Why Personal Sound Walls Are Important
If you’re not a believer in sound walls quite yet, let me share why I think individual file folder sound walls are important.
As students are constantly learning a variety of sounds, they need reference sheets to keep track of these sounds all in one place. Individual sound walls allow them to do that.
They also allow students to keep a portable version of the classroom sound wall with them so if they need to take it with them to small groups, centers, writing, or somewhere else – they can easily do so!
Or if your class doesn’t have a lot of wall space these are the perfect answer to the problem! Having a small classroom doesn’t mean that your students shouldn’t get to use a sound wall. A portable sound wall may be just what you need!
A closer look at the file folder sound wall
Take a closer look at what you’ll get in the free file folder sound wall download.
Each page includes the same mouth photos and key images as the full size classroom sound wall.
There are also editable pages without the key images. On these pages, you can type in your heart words or high frequency words. This becomes a great reference for students during your writing time!
How to Create a Free Personal Sound Wall
My free personal sound wall resource includes these pages:
- File folder sound wall cover
- A consonant sound wall
- A vowel valley
You’ll use both of these pages in your file folder version for students.
To Set Up the Free Personal Sound Wall for Students:
1. Grab a file folder. (I recommend using a specific color file folder to help students locate their sound wall inside of their desks more easily.)
2. Glue the consonant sound wall chart on the left side of the folder.
3. Glue the vowel alley chart on the right side of the folder.
4. Label the outside of the folder If you didn’t choose a specific color file folder.
Don’t feel like you have time to create free personal sound wall folders for each student? Consider having parent volunteers put them together for you!
If you don’t have a parent volunteer to help, consider stapling the sound wall charts into folders to make the process go a little more quickly! I promise creating these folders will be well worth it in the end.
Download your Free File Folder Sound Walls Here!
Are you ready to start using these free personal sound wall folders with your students?
They’ll love being able to have their very own sound wall to use as a reference tool to use in your classroom or on the go. Plus, as students use their sound walls more and more, they’ll gain the confidence they need to become stronger readers.
I love creating free resources for teachers to use in their classrooms. My free personal sound wall resource is no different! Want to give it a try? Download it here:
Do you love free stuff?
free file folder sound wall
Grab these free, editable file folder sound walls to try with your class!
Want to read more about sound walls and how to use them in your classroom? Check out these blog posts:
Want to connect with other teachers who are using sound walls in their classrooms? Join my Free Teacher Facebook group here.
