Alphabetical word wall bulletin boards are great for students to see patterns and relationships in words. The words need to be large enough that they can be easily read from across the room. They must be written or printed in fonts that have suitable letter styles. They must look they way you would teach students to write them, especially letter ‘a’ and ‘g’. The letter headers at the tops can be in all caps but I prefer to have both the capital letters and lower case letters together.

I love to find awesome classroom bulletin board ideas. As an Amazon affiliate, I may earn a commission for purchases using my links. The ideas and paid links below are based on Amazon finds that are great for classroom word walls.

Ideas for Alphabetical Word Wall Bulletin Boards

Use a dry erase word wall: This dry erase word wall has large letter cut-outs as the headers. The dry-erase background uses two sheets, one above the other. The benefit of a dry erase word wall is that it is easy to add or remove words because they are written in, rather than stuck on as word cards.

Use letter stickers for headers: This simple wall wall bulletin board used this confetti border trim and circle letter stickers for the letter headers.

Use letter cut-outs for headers: Large letter cut-outs usually come in either upper case or lower case alphabet sets. These scribble shaded letters come in two sizes; 2″ and 3″ and they are magnetic! Use colorful whiteboard markers to write the word lists in colors to match the letter cut-outs.

Faux clipboard Alphabet Word Wall: At a glance, this word wall looks like a work display bulletin board with clipboards but is is really black sheets of cardstock laid out for each letter.

Spanish word wall: These gold letter cut-outs were used with colorful cardstock sheets to make the letter headers.

List the words vertically on a ribbon: This is a classic display style for alphabet bulletin boards. Hang a ribbon under each letter header and add the corresponding word cards to the ribbons.

Dress up a plain word wall with color coded word cards and string lights, or vines: Not all teachers are crafty, or have the time to make perfectly cut-out letter headers for bulletin boards. Always be sure to choose bright colors over a dark background for contrast, like the colorful word cards against the dark blue background in the picture above. These string lights brighten up the bulletin board and make it interesting for students to want to check out out and read the words. I like that lights make for borders that are three dimensional, this makes them pop more. Another 3D border can be faux vines. See more 3D border trim ideas in this blog post.

Alphabetical Word Wall Bulletin Boards With Pockets for Word Cards

Use a shoe organizer as a word wall holder: A teacher hung this shoe organizer in her bulletin board area as a word wall holder. The pockets are labeled in alphabetical order and the organizer is thick and sturdy enough to hold all the word cards for each letter.

Display the letter headers with the word cards stored under them in bags: If you don’t have the wall space for a word wall bulletin board, display the letter headers on a magnetic surface, and place the word cards for each letter in bags that you can hang up using magnetic clips. This can be used as a sorting activity for your students to sort the cards into their matching bags.

Themed based Alphabetical Word Wall Bulletin Boards

Change out the borders to match your theme: This is a beautiful Spring themed word wall bullletin board with a rainbow trim. As the seasons change, you can just change the border only.

Represent the theme with a theme based background: This ocean themed alphabetical word wall bulletin board has an ocean themed background. The background you choose, should not be too busy-looking, so that it does not distract from the rest of your bulletin board elements.

How to Store Word Cards for your Alphabetical Word Wall

Word wall cards can be used over and over each year as long as they are stored properly during the periods that they are not on your wall. Below are ideas for storing your word wall cards.

• Store word wall cards in a binder pouch: Store in a zippered pouch that has the three holes to fit into a three-ring binder. Clear binder envelope inserts can also be used. Each word wall set can be stored in a different binder envelope. Each binder can have a word wall card set for a different subject.
• Store them in an art bin box: If you have long ward wall cards, this art bin is ideal for storing them. These are the boxes that can double as storage for bulletin border trims.
• Use a pocket chart: Store word wall cards in a deep pocket chart, like a hanging shoe organizer, or in a wide pocket chart for the words to fit horizontally. See pictures of these in this blog post.

More Examples of Alphabetical Word Wall Bulletin Boards

Cut up alphabet strips: I’ve seen teachers take alphabet strips for classroom walls, and cut them up to separate the letters. Each letter is then used as a header for the alphabetical word wall.

Use constrasting colors: This makes it easier for students to read the alphabet letters and the word cards. Use white, pastel colors, or metallic colors on a black background. On a white background, use black or any dark color for contrast.

I hope you have found ideas for making your own Alphabetical Word Wall Bulletin Boards. If you have any questions, you can ask me anything in the comments below. For making your word wall stay up on cinder block walls, I have some helpful tips in this blog post.