digital Word Wall... on the iPad

After observing students' attempts to use the classroom Word Wall (or avoidance of), I realized...

• early and emergent readers consistently had difficulty distinguishing between visually similar words (ex: "is" and "it")
• copying information from the class Word Wall to personal writing was not supportive of the visual development of ages 6 and 7
• seeing homophones (ex: "to", "too", "two") did not support students' use of homophones accurately in writing

After discussing my observations with my first graders, we collaboratively identified a possible solution that would increase independent use of the Word Wall, support accurate spelling in personal writing, and promote knowledge and use of homophones... a digital class Word Wall!

Using the Book Creator iPad app, I created a digital Word Wall.

I created one page for each letter of the alphabet.  For each high-frequency word on the page I created an audio recording of the word in isolation and within the context of a sentence.

I "published" and shared the digital Word Wall with students through iBooks... providing students access to a digital Word Wall on their iPads.

a first grader uses a digital Word Wall on the iPad