Unlock FUN with Your Sound Wall in the Classroom
This FUN & simple Sound Wall Routine
will supercharge your phonics lessons !
Your Sound Wall Is the Foundation of Your Phonics Program
Your sound wall isn’t just another cute bulletin board — it’s the heart of your phonics & spelling instruction. Why? When used with the alphabet for consonant sounds, it displays ALL 44 phonemes (sounds) in English and connects them to the graphemes (spellings) that represent them.
This helps students understand that letters represent sounds, and those sounds are what we blend to read and segment to spell.
Sound walls are based on the Science of Reading — specifically, on what we know about phonemic awareness, orthographic mapping, segmenting and spelling, and the brain’s process for learning to read. When used daily, sound walls support:
- Decoding
- Spelling
- Speech-to-print connections
But here’s the catch:
Sound walls only work when students actually use them. This is where the fun begins.
🔓 Unlock the Fun: Use this Lock Routine to create a sense of wonder & make your Sound Wall interactive.
What if your students couldn’t wait to learn the next sound?
What if your sound wall became the most exciting spot in the classroom?With just a few locks and a little chant you can make your sound wall an interactive learning tool that kids will actually want use because they know how to use it.
Here’s how to make it work, and why it’s so powerful.
🔐 My Sound Wall Routine: Locks & Chant
To boost students’ curiosity and wonder, I cover the sounds my students haven’t learned yet with “locks.” I laminate my locks on cardstock and staple them over the concept that hasn’t been taught so they are easy to remove when it is time. This tiny little addition increases student focus and engaging x 100! They will often ask, “Do we get to unlock a sound today?”
Every day we say the Sound Wall Chant to review what we’ve learned so far. The students get so excited to remove a lock and introduce a new sound & spelling card. I let the students guess what they think it might be.
When it’s time to introduce a new sound & spelling, first we read the chant together.
All of the students give a…. drumroll please…. ddddddddd … ping!
as I pull off the lock to reveal the new sound & spellings.
Then I introduce the lock:
Teacher: The new sound is… /ow/.
Repeat after me: /ow/
Students: /ow/
T: o-w spells /ou/. o-u spells /ow/
Then we practice decoding and encoding the new sound as we move on with the phonics lesson.
Now, that section of the wall is open — and kids know exactly how to use it as they read and write throughout the day.
Do you know what helps kids actually use the sound wall?
Having it accessible all the time, right at their desk.
CLICK HERE to grab *FREE* Student Sound Wall Charts for Your Students!
Why the Sound Wall Works
This “Remove the Lock” routine boosts:
- ✨ Engagement — mystery triggers motivation
- 💪 Memory — routines reduce cognitive load & helps new learning stick
- 📍 Purposeful use — students want to return to the wall because they need it to read and write throughout the day
- 🧠 Ownership — it becomes their tool, not just yours
Sound walls are rooted in the science of reading because they reflect how the brain learns to read — starting with sounds and connecting them to the letters that represent them. But for that process to work, students must interact with the wall.
As students use the sound wall again and again each day, those phoneme-grapheme connections go from short term memory to long term memory is also known as… learning!
When kids see the sound wall as a place of mysteries to unlock, they’ll ask you when they get to open another sound. And when you refer to it throughout the day — while reading and spelling through all subject areas— you’ll build the foundation for strong, confident, independent readers and writers.
Click HERE to Get Your UFLI-Aligned Sound Wall *with Locks*
