72 Elkonin Boxes
Brooklynn Hill
Strategy Overview
- Elkonin Boxes are beneficial because they help students break up words into sounds that make up words.According to Reading Rockets, Elkonin Boxes “ help students build phonological awareness by segmenting words into sounds or syllables. They teach students how to count the number of phonemes in the word (not always the number of letters). They help students better understand the alphabetic principle in decoding and spelling.” (Reading Rockets).
- In the classroom, this activity can be used throughout the school year. Anytime that students are introduced to new site words, vocabulary words, or words that they do not know how to identify, this activity will be able to help them put the sounds of the words together. This activity can be done as a full class, however it is more effective when it takes place in small groups. Students work together to separate the sounds of each letter that make up a word. When working in small groups, this activity becomes more individualized, and students are able to work more 1:1 with the words they struggle with. Working alongside their peers on this activity helps them when they might get stuck on one sound, the group can work together to figure out the sounds. Elkonin Boxes is also a great example of an activity that you can send home with your students to work on with their parents outside of school.
Strategy in Action
To use this strategy in the classroom, first the teacher or instructor must give students paper or a white board that they can draw boxes on that will represent sounds. Students will first listen to the teacher sound out the word that they are currently working on. Students will practice sounding out the word slowly. Have the students stretch out each sound of the word so they can identify the letters that create that sound. Students then need to repeat the word that they just sounded out. Draw boxes on the given paper or white board with one box for each syllable or phoneme. Students will then count how many phonemes they find in the word. Note that this may not be the same number of letters. The student will then move the tile or box, or colored circle into the boxes repeating the sound of the word. Once all of the boxes are covered, have the student repeat the word one final time. Repeat with as many words as students need to review.
Related Resources
Eastman, P. D., Silverstein, S., Hopkins, L. B., & Shulman, M. (n.d.). Elkonin boxes. Reading Rockets.
Understood. (2019, January 28). Literacy strategy- Elkonin sound boxes [Video]. YouTube.
SAVVAS Literacy Company (n.d.). 50 fun phonics activities.
