What words are selected for the Word Wall and why?
At the primary grades, the words on the WW are strictly high-frequency words. That means those words that students encounter most frequently in their reading and need most often in their writing. Some lists that Pat Cunningham has shared with us have strategically included high-frequency words that provide patterns that will enable students to spell other rhyming words (word families). Also, we want to have words under every letter of the alphabet, which is why you might see the word “zoo” on a WW. Some basal series are helpful in identifying high-frequency words that correlate with a guided reading selection. There are also reliable lists available for this purpose. As the grades go up, the teacher should depend more and more on selecting words for the WW from the frequently misspelled words from students’ writing. The words should still be words that most students encounter in their reading and need for their writing, although they may appear with less regularity than the ones on the
