To Create an interactive Word Wall

Once you have the text you wish to turn into a ‘word wall’ in front of you, Select All (by using Ctrl A);

  • If your text is single-spaced use Ctrl 5 to space the lines further apart;
  • Change the fontcolour to red;
  • Use the red highlighter pen to highlight the text.

IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH ANY OF THE ABOVE, make sure you have the text selected (Ctrl A) before changing the colour.

You now have lines of bricks but no mortar between the words:

You now have lines of bricks but no mortar

You nonw havnne of bricks but vvno morptar

The monkey was not impressed with the banana

2. To insert the white spaces between the words:

  • Go to Edit > Replace
  • Click on ‘More’ (if the button says ‘Less’ you won’t need to do this!).
  • Click in the ‘Find what’ box and type a single space.
  • Click in the ‘Replace with’ box. Click on Format(in the open dialogue box – see illustration overleaf) and then on Highlight.
  • Click on Highlighta second time and it should then say ‘Not highlight’ under the ‘Replace with’ box. Click on ‘Replace All’.

You should now have a brick wall.

To use the words wall with a class, select the highlighter tool. It should stand out from the other icons.

Double click on any brick to reveal a word. Double click again to hide it again.

With a little practice this will work very smoothly. You will be able to do this directly onto an IWB, too.

Troubleshooting

Some texts, when copied from a website, bring with them ‘embedded’ information which can prevent this technique working. So, when copying texts from the internet, note this little icon which appears when you Paste into Word:

If you click on it, you will see these options:

Select ‘Keep Text Only’ and you shouldn’t have any problems.

If problems persist, paste your text into Notepad (find it in All Programs > Accessories > Notepad) rather than Word. Then copy it from Notepad into Word and it will be fine. (Notepad seems to act like a sieve and removes unwanted items.)

As mentioned above, if something doesn’t seem to work, make sure you have the text selected (Ctrl A) before making a change.