Unlocking Literacy: Elkonin Boxes

Phonological Awareness and the Magic of Elkonin Boxes in Early Learning

Phonological awareness refers to the understanding that spoken language is made up of individual and separate sounds called phonemes. It’s a crucial step in learning to read and write, as it allows children to understand the relationship between sounds and letters.

Elkonin Boxes serve as a visual aid designed to assist children in deconstructing words into individual phonemes. Usually depicted as a sequence of squares, each box corresponds to one sound within a word. For example, the word ‘rat’ would be segmented into three boxes, signifying the /r/, /a/, and /t/ sounds respectively.

These boxes are a hands-on, interactive tool that engages students in a multisensory approach to phonological awareness.  We often use Elkonin boxes in the early stages of literacy instruction in Year 1 to build foundational skills for reading and spelling.