This issue of NASET’s LD Report was written by Samantha Ashley Forrest from Florida Memorial University. From the science of reading, we learned that human brains are wired with learning to know how to express their thought process through speech, not by reading the written word. Language is a complex and dynamic system of symbols used in various modes of thought and communication (Kamhi & Catts, 2012). Language is broken into phonology, semantics, morphonology, syntax, and pragmatics through the spoken express part of the language. As we progress and attend education institutes starting from prekindergarten to as far as graduate level classes, we begin using the written language known as reading to reinforce the skills taught by using auditory (speech) and visual (print) input to content the materials we learn to hopefully become better human beings that can lead to a better job and learning opportunities (Kamhi & Catts, 2012). One of the evidenced-based practices for phonemic awareness to assist with word recognition is Elkonin boxes, also known as letter and sound boxes. This issue of NASET’s LD Report will focus on evidence based research: Elkonin Boxes.
I. Introduction
From the science of reading, we learned that human brains are wired with learning to know how to express their thought process through speech, not by reading the written word. Language is a complex and dynamic system of symbols used in various modes of thought and communication (Kamhi & Catts, 2012). Language is broken into phonology, semantics, morphonology, syntax, and pragmatics through the spoken express part of the language. As we progress and attend education institutes starting from prekindergarten to as far as graduate level classes, we begin using the written language known as reading to reinforce the skills taught by using auditory (speech) and visual (print) input to content the materials we learn to hopefully become better human beings that can lead to a better job and learning opportunities (Kamhi & Catts, 2012).
In the beginning stages of reading of learning to read, we begin to rewire our brains to decode reading by multiplying language to get reading comprehension, as learned through The Simple View of Reading by Gough and Tunmer in 1986. Along with Scarborough’s “The Many Strands Woven into Skilled Reading (2001), we learn that language comprehension and word recognition also contribute to the reading comprehension process. With this background knowledge, we can understand that reading development comes in different stages of a young reader’s life.
One of the beginnings of reading development processes is developing word recognition skills for emergent readers, typically children in kindergarten or younger (Kamhi & Catts, 2012). Young readers are learning print, starting with learning logos to put names to given things based on visual content, processing sound-letter correspondences through the alphabetic principles, and then starting orthographic to start to distinguish between words automatically.
One of the evidenced-based practices for phonemic awareness to assist with word recognition is Elkonin boxes, also known as letter and sound boxes. Word boxes are “used initially to teach that words are made up of sounds and to have the students practice breaking words into individual sounds (Burns, Riley-Tillman, & Rathvon, 2017).” For example, when learning the word “dog,” we can break the individual sounds into /d, /o/, and /g/ to blend them. “This intervention is most appropriate for young children and can help students who struggle with the most basic foundations of reading (Burns, Riley-Tillman, & Rathvon, 2017).” Word box intervention can be done in a whole group lesson and small group intervention.
Elkonin boxes require minimal materials since it can be done with a dry-erase board with dry-erase markers, a magnetic board with magnetic letters, or simply a sheet of paper with counters. On each surface, the interventionist needs to dry or make three boxes which the manipulative can go inside the boxes to represent the sound. The interventionist would need to have a set of target number sounds words before starting the intervention. This can be words from their spelling sheet or words they have been struggling with. As the manipulatives go inside their corresponding letter boxes, the interventionist has the student tap on them to practice blending individual sounds to make the whole word.
The implementation of the intervention requires the interventionist to present explicit and direct instructions modeled for the student or students in an “I do” approach. When it comes to the “We do” approach, the intervention must provide corrective feedback to ensure that the student understands. The “You do” approach has the interventionist monitoring student working on the practice independently. The Elkonin boxes have evolved throughout the years, but the focus is still on phonemic awareness with visual representation to break down words.
Orton-Gillingham’s Multisensory Approach uses Clay’s implementation of Elkonin boxes by making it more interactive for the students to break down the letter sounds to blend words. This has allowed educators to use the same practice for multisyllabic words as students’ progress with more complex materials. Elkonin boxes’ evidence-based intervention has been proven successful for students in the primary setting from numerous studies, from students learning English for the first time to English Language Learners as well as monolingual languages such as Spanish. This research article on the effects of the evidence-based intervention on Elkonin boxes proposed the positive outcomes students have learned with this practice.
II. Summaries of Research Articles
A. Word Boxes Help Children with Learning Disabilities Identify and Spell Words
“Word Boxes Help Children with Learning Disabilities Identify and Spell Words” by Laurice M. Joseph was published in December 1998 and again in January 1999. The purpose of her study was to use a continuation of Elkonin’s word boxes to help students with learning disabilities attend to phonological and orthographic features of words (Joseph, 1999). “Word boxes can help children attend to orthographic features as they write letters of a word in their proper sequence (Joseph, 1999).” We know that orthographic processing involves the recognition of visual patterns in words and recalling the letter sequence. Word boxes help segment and blend those words to input the word patterns.
Joseph designed an intervention plan for preselected participants with significantly below-average letter-word identification and pseudoword from the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement-Revised (1990) and below-average spelling test scores derived from the Kaufman Test of Education Achievement (1983). She also used data from the Test of Phonological Awareness (1994). There were three second-grade students, two third-grade students, and one fourth-grade student. Their ages range from the youngest at seven years old to the oldest at ten years old. The participants received a special education teacher general education curriculum and placement in mainstream classes with their peers. The students were already receiving reading instruction in a small group setting. Some intervention activities were “small-group storybook reading, drill, and practice activities involving reading words from a list of sight words and writing weekly spelling words ten times each (Joseph, 1999).” From Joseph’s observation, very little systematic instruction was taking place regarding the phonological and orthographic processes.
Joseph wanted to examine “whether word box instruction would be effective for improving word identification and spelling performance for children with learning disabilities (Joseph, 1999).” The intervention plan consisted of direct word box instruction sessions for about twenty minutes daily lesson. The participants received over twenty-one sessions during the study. Joseph used a combination of magnetic boards, magnetic letters, counters, and markers to demonstrate how to use word boxes by drawing word boxes for Continent-Vowel-Continent (CVC) Words. Joseph used a gradual release model approach with an “I do, we do, you do” approach. She would first model expectations with direct and explicit instruction, then have the students practice with teacher guidance. During her instructional sessions, she would focus on ten-item word identification and spelling measures, like baseline quizzes after the session.
The students’ “performance scores were calculated from baseline, instruction, maintenance, and transfer phases (Joseph, 1999).” The maintenance process was conducted one month after the study was completed. The transfer phases represent that the students were able to independently read and spell the words of those words that were provided during the study sessions. Joseph’s findings showed a positive effect on the students’ learning. By the end of the maintenance and transfer phase, students could “identify and spell words with more ease and automatically once internalized phonological and orthographic structures in words (Joseph, 1999).” Word box instruction was proved to help students with practice maintain performance levels in identifying and spelling basic words because of the supportive structure of the divided boxes.
Joseph’s study on word box instruction is beneficial in helping students visualize word patterns for blending and segmenting. Using the divided word, students can break down the word into syllable chunks to help them read more fluently. Students can become familiar with the process to help them with more complex texts as they go through the upper grades. We know that word boxes are primarily used in the primary setting from prekindergarten to second grade. Joseph even notes that there is little information on word box instruction as students enter the upper grades. This correlates with primary grades focusing on phonic foundation skills compared to upper grades concentrating on reading comprehension. However, Joseph does imply that more information needs to be done on word box instruction for upper grades (Joseph, 1999). She does explain how simple resources for word box instruction are available, from computer screen designs to simple drawing boxes on a sheet of paper or even presented orally. Students can benefit from word box instruction to help build better word identification that would help reading fluency.
B. The Effects of Word Box Instruction on Acquisition, Generalization, and Maintenance of Decoding and Spelling Skills for First Graders
“The Effects of Word Box Instruction on Acquisition, Generalization, and Maintenance of Decoding and Spelling Skills for First Graders” was a study to examine the effects of using word boxes intervention as supplemental instructions method on the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization by Sheila R. Alber-Morgan, Laurice M. Joseph, Brittany Kanotz, Christina A. Rouse, and Mary R. Sawyer in Education and Treatment of Children in 2016. Their study aimed to examine “the effects of word box instruction on this population is needed given that they are expected to acquire letter-sound correspondences by the end of the first grade (Alber-Morgan, Joseph, Kanotz, Rouse, & Sawyer, 2016).” They acknowledge that previous research was mostly done with Caucasian participants. They are focusing on African American population. They pose the following research questions: “What are the effects of word box instruction on the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of CVC word identification and spelling for African American first graders identified as academically at risk and attending an urban school? Was the word box intervention implemented with integrity? What are the teachers’ and students’ opinions of word box instruction (Alber-Morgan, Joseph, Kanotz, Rouse, & Sawyer, 2016)?”
The research team selected three African American first grade students. Two participants were boys and one girl who attended an “urban charter school in a high poverty area in a large Midwestern city (Alber-Morgan, Joseph, Kanotz, Rouse, & Sawyer, 2016).” The participants were in the general education classroom for most of the school day with supplemental instruction through Title I remedial reading intervention services in school. They did have their regular reading instruction with their peers. With additional intervention separately for the reading instruction. The participants’ names are Liam, Lauren, and Matthew. Liam and Lauren scored kindergarten’s first-month reading level on the Stanford Achievement Score, and Matthew scored kindergarten’s third-month reading level. Each participant received a pre-and post-assessment, the same assessment before and after the implementation of the intervention. The assessment was done by the interventional specialist, who focused on words read correctly and words spelled correctly.
An interventional specialist did the word box instruction intervention study, “a graduate student in a special education master’s degree program with a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education with four years of teaching experience (Alber-Morgan, Joseph, Kanotz, Rouse, & Sawyer, 2016).” The intervention took place with each participant separately. The word box instruction ranged from ten to fifteen minutes. “Nine CVC words containing the same vowel were selected for each intervention phase, with alliteration sets of three of the nine words taught per session within an intervention phase (Alber-Morgan, Joseph, Kanotz, Rouse, & Sawyer, 2016).” The intervention specialist “administered maintenance probes one week after the end of each intervention phase, and then every two weeks for each word set until the end of the school year (Alber-Morgan, Joseph, Kanotz, Rouse, & Sawyer, 2016).” The intervention specialist also “administered generalization probes at the end of each intervention phase.” It consisted of “nine untrained CVC words containing the same vowel as the set of words used in the intervention phase (Alber-Morgan, Joseph, Kanotz, Rouse, & Sawyer, 2016).”
The participant, Matthew, had about twelve sessions to “achieve mastery for each of four CVC word sets (Alber-Morgan, Joseph, Kanotz, Rouse, & Sawyer, 2016).” He demonstrated an upward trend until he reached mastery criteria. The participant, Lauren, data also showed an upward trend; she required more sessions than Matthew. She received “twenty-one sessions to attain nine out of nine words read correctly (Alber-Morgan, Joseph, Kanotz, Rouse, & Sawyer, 2016).” The participant, Liam, data showed a downward trend. He remained in the same CVC word set of nine words. He did receive additional phase changes for the same word set; however, Liam read four words correctly. Even with the additional sessions, Liam’s score did not improve.
Matthew and Lauren’s maintenance data showed that “a student demonstrated mastery of a word set and then every two weeks after that until the end of the study (Alber-Morgan, Joseph, Kanotz, Rouse, & Sawyer, 2016).” Liam did not receive any maintenance data since he did not master the first word set. Lauren, out of the three participants, showed that she could generalize after partaking in the study. Of the participants, “Matthew was most responsive to instruction, and Liam was least responsive (Alber-Morgan, Joseph, Kanotz, Rouse, & Sawyer, 2016).”
“The Effects of Word Box Instruction on Acquisition, Generalization, and Maintenance of Decoding and Spelling Skills for First Graders” did have all participants score higher on the spelling probes than on the reading probes. There is more to discuss. The researchers believed one of the limitations was that their pre-determined criteria for acquisition might have been set too high for the students to reach and could have prevented them from making progress quicker to additional word sets (Alber-Morgan, Joseph, Kanotz, Rouse, & Sawyer, 2016). This cannot be very clear since, as educators, we set high expectations for our students to succeed; however, we must stop to think if they are reasonable for our students. That can be changed by creating individual goals for our students. There is a lack of information to determine how this intervention can affect students with disabilities since the three selected students were not identified in research as having disabilities but having low reading scores. That might signify that the participants may have a reading disability, especially in Liam’s case, with slight improvement with the word box intervention. The researchers do suggest exploring another population of students who are English Language Learners (ELL) on how they might be affected by this intervention as well.
C. Effects of Word Boxes on Improving Students’ Basic Literacy Skills: Literature Review
“Effects of Word Boxes on Improving Students’ Basic Literacy Skills: Literature Review” by Kelsey M. Ross and Laurice M. Joseph was published in Routledge: Taylor and Francis Group’s Preventing School Failure in 2019. Their literature review aimed to “analyze the effects of word boxes on students’ reading performance and draw some conclusions about the evidence relating to the intervention (Ross & Joseph, 2019).” They wanted to “determine the unique effects of the word boxes intervention (Ross & Joseph, 2019)” by “identifying studies that examined (Ross & Joseph, 2019)” word boxes intervention when not embedded into a comprehensive literacy program. They knew that word box intervention effectively improved students’ phonemic awareness, reading decoding, and spelling performance. They went with a continuum of Elkonin’s word boxes by using Clay’s revision with a multisensory approach for those students struggling with acquiring phonological decoding skills. The reason that sparked the literature review was The Nation’s Report Card of 2015. “In 2015, only 36% of fourth graders achieved reading proficiency on a national literacy assessment, findings largely unchanged from 2013 (Ross & Joseph, 2019).” Sadly, scores have not improved since then.
Ross and Joseph had 136 participants (Ross & Joseph, 2019). They chose ten studies that met their inclusion criteria based on participants, number of phases used in the word boxes intervention, tier of instruction, dependent variables, and summary of reading performance outcomes. Of the 136 participants, twenty-two were preschool students, and 114 were elementary students ranging from kindergarten to fourth grade. Most of the participants were in the first grade. Thirteen of the participants had a form of learning disability. Two participants were English Language Learners.
The literature review design divided the participants into seven single-subject experimental groups. Two out of the seven single-subject groups were given multiple baseline-designed assessments. Another two groups had numerous probe designs. One was multiple probes designed across skills. Another two groups had alternating treatment designs. Ross and Joseph focused on targeted word-for-word box intervention. Nine of the ten studies chosen used real words, and one used nonsense words. They had the intervention sessions happen between two to five days per week and reported that each session time ranged from four to forty minutes with a mean and median of 20 minutes per session (Ross & Joseph, 2019). The dependent variables were phonemic awareness, letter-sound correspondences, spelling, and maintenance with generalization.
Ross and Joseph’s data showed that participants positively affected word box intervention. “Students maintained high levels of phoneme segmentation, letter-sound correspondences, and spelling performance after word boxes intervention sessions ended (Ross & Joseph, 2019).” Their findings revealed that six to fourteen weeks after the word boxes intervention sessions ended, the participants still “maintained performance on these skills and were able to generalize skills from one content to the next at a moderate to high level of performance (Ross & Joseph, 2019).” Some of the participants were able to read and spell untrained words in isolation or sentences.
“Effects of Word Boxes on Improving Students’ Basic Literacy Skills: Literature Review” by Kelsey M. Ross and Laurice M. Joseph discuss the difference between traditional whole word drill and word box intervention. Their “findings revealed that the word boxes were significantly more effective than (Ross & Joseph, 2019)” the whole language approaches. However, they did indicate that more instructional time is needed to produce more positive outcomes. They recognize their limitations with the word boxes intervention by suggesting researchers explore “the gradual fading of modeling and guided practice with corrective feedback, as well as the fading of the supportive materials inherent to the intervention (Ross & Joseph, 2019).” We know the word boxes intervention is effective “when modeled by guided practice and independent practice with corrective feedback were incorporated while teaching students to use this technique (Ross & Joseph, 2019).” However, they did mention that there was a lack of studies on word boxes intervention and their influences on students with various learning disabilities. Their literature review had thirteen participants identified with a form of learning disability. We know that disabilities can interfere with students acquiring basic learning skills.
D. Effects of a Kindergarten Phonological Awareness Intervention on Grade One Reading Achievement Among Spanish-Speaking Children from Low-Income Families
“Effects of a Kindergarten Phonological Awareness Intervention on Grade One Reading Achievement Among Spanish-Speaking Children from Low-Income Families” by Maria Elsa Porta, Gloria Ramirez, and David K. Dickinson conducted a study to examine the effects of a “kindergarten phonological awareness intervention on grade one literacy skills in Spanish speaking children from low-income neighborhoods in Mendoza, Argentina (Porta, Ramirez, & Dickinson, 2021).” They posed the following research questions: “What are the short and long-term effects of a kindergarten phonological awareness intervention on phonological awareness, letter-sound knowledge, word reading, spelling, and reading comprehension among Spanish-speaking Argentinean children? Specifically, are there significant differences in post-treatment outcomes measures across the treatment and comparison group (Porta, Ramirez, & Dickinson, 2021)?” There is little research done with Spanish-Speaking children regarding the influences of phonological awareness other than with students who are learning English through these intervention practices. Like how we recognize at-risk students in kindergarten and first grade learning English in the [primary school setting, in Argentina, phonological awareness is a “key precursor of reading comprehension” in Spanish.
The participants were one hundred seventy-eight monolingual Spanish-speaking kindergarten students. Ninety-six were male students, and eighty-two were female from Mendoza, Argentina (Porta, Ramirez, & Dickinson, 2021). The researchers selected eight classes from three state-funded schools located in low-income communities. “Children met the following criteria: 1) they had no known history of neurological problems or hearing difficulties indicated from parental input, 2) they had not learned to read indicated from teacher input and pre-treatment data collected, 3) the majority of the children’s parents had middle- to the low-academic level reported by school records, 4) the children were from middle or low socioeconomic status families reported by school records (Porta, Ramirez, & Dickinson, 2021).” The eight classes were divided into two groups of four. One group of four classes was assigned to the intervention condition with one hundred one students, while the other four were assigned to the control group with seventy-seven students.
The researchers designed the phonological awareness intervention participants to take a pre-and post-assessment. The thirty-four intervention lessons that lasted for about thirty minutes were given three times a week and delivered by the kindergarten teacher to the whole class. Every lesson for the experimental group was three phonological awareness exercises: ‘Say-It-and-Move-It,’ a linguistic game, and an activity on “letter-sound correspondences for four vowels and five consonants (Porta, Ramirez, & Dickinson, 2021).” They used Elkonin’s and Clay’s Word Boxes as a part of the phonemic awareness intervention to assist students with identifying and recognizing letter and phoneme sounds. The control group received a shorter intervention program that lasted for six sessions of thirty minutes each that focused on grammar development. They worked on creating short sentences and manipulated rubber disks to segment sentences into words. To ensure implementation fidelity, researchers assigned four trained research assistants to observe ten randomly selected lessons with a checklist of criteria they were to see.
The effects on phonological awareness were divided into separate categories: effects of the intervention on initial sound identification, effects on rhyme identification, effects on phoneme segmentation, effects on sound blending, effects on syllable and phoneme isolation, and effects on syllable and phoneme deletion (Porta, Ramirez, & Dickinson, 2021). The literacy skills from the phonological awareness intervention also considered the effects on letter-name sound knowledge, effects on word reading, effects on spelling, and effects on reading comprehension (Porta, Ramirez, & Dickinson, 2021). Each category had pre- and two post-tests to compare the time length of the intervention study. According to the data from all the categories, all participants significantly improved compared to their pre- and post-test number two. However, the control group did improve more than the experimental group from pre- and post-test number one. Nevertheless, the experimental group outperformed the control group on the effects of time and condition on Reading Comprehension (Porta, Ramirez, & Dickinson, 2021).
The researchers assessed the short-term effects of their intervention on all phonological awareness abilities. “Significant long-term effects were observed on initial sound identification and blending (Porta, Ramirez, & Dickinson, 2021).” The experimental group’s intervention helped the children detect sounds in words, enabling them to decode words more easily. The researchers do encourage more studies on Spanish-speaking countries for phonological awareness. The study found limitations in determining “whether the kindergarten phonological awareness training effect would hold beyond grade one.” This phenomenon would also explain how English-speaking countries stopped focusing on phonological awareness training past the second grade. This is due to upper grades focusing more on reading comprehension than reading foundation skills unless those students received remedial instruction in either small groups or another scheduled intervention time. It is not surprising to see the comparison of how important phonological awareness is in any language and that those skills are imperative in determining students reading success.
E. An Investigation of the Balanced Literacy Approach for Enhancing Phonemic Awareness of Thai First-Grade Students
“An Investigation of the Balanced Literacy Approach for Enhancing Phonemic Awareness of Thai First-Grade Students” was conducted by Sarunya Tarat and Usaporn Sucaromana, in which they examined a balanced literacy approach to accelerate phonemic awareness for That first-graders learning English as their second language. Tarat and Sucaromana proposed the following research questions: (A) do the students improve their phonemic awareness of English after training through the balanced literacy approach? Moreover, (B) How are the students learning phonemic awareness lessons through the balanced literacy approach (Tarat & Sucaromana, 2014)? They designed their research to be a quasi-experiment since it used a quantitative research method to determine how an effective balanced literacy approach with whole-group instruction can enhance phonemic awareness skills and a qualitative research method to determine how engaged students were with the learning approach. They state that “the balanced literacy approach is a method that teaches phonemic awareness to learners and supports them in achieving adequate awareness since it combines whole language approach and phonics to teach skills such as word recognition and identification, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension (Tarat & Sucaromana, 2014).”
The participants consisted of thirty first-graders in Uttaradit province, Thailand. They narrowed their sampling from four hundred first graders initially. Of the thirty students, seventeen were female, and thirteen were male selected with having different levels of academic performance: low, moderate, and high—a homogenous style of grouping. They participated in a ten-week-long study. Each participant was given a pretest, a posttest, and a follow-up test after students received the new learning approach instruction. The pretest was completed in the first week of training and determined the participants’ phonemic awareness of English (Tarat & Sucaromana, 2014). The posttest was compared to the pretest to see whether the “intervention could help the participants to discriminate English phonemes and develop their phonemic awareness of English (Tarat & Sucaromana, 2014).” The follow-up test provided the “participants’ ability to retain and recall information about phonemic awareness from their memories” based on the intervention. The activities to reinforce the intervention were sound identification, same or different, fun with sound boxes, finding graphemes, who am I?, and crossword puzzles. For the qualitative research, participants were video recorded receiving instruction while the observers were overlooking the videos using rubrics to determine how students were engaged in being taught phonemic awareness (Tarat & Sucaromana, 2014).
The quantitative research results showed that participants made learning gains compared to their pretest and posttest scores on initial and final consonant sounds with a 0.01 level of significance. In other words, the first graders responded very well with whole group instruction on the whole language approach and phonics. The intervention activities allowed the students to be engaged and practice the phonological awareness skills they learned through applied activities over the eight-week study period. The follow-up test proved that students could continue to perform better and understand phonemic awareness once the intervention was completed. “After the training period, the teachers informed the researchers that students could read and write words faster than those who did not participate in the study and could detect sounds better and faster (Tarat & Sucaromana, 2014).” This means students were able to transfer their skills for them to learn through experiences and meaningful content.
The qualitative research results from the video recording and field notes also showed positive student engagement and response to the intervention. Their rubric criteria consisted of monitoring students making eye contact, behavior, preparation, listening, questions, and discussing along with following directions and student confidence during class instruction (Tarat & Sucaromana, 2014). The first graders were working with their peers to exchange information that was appropriate and related to the learning contents.
Tarat and Suaronmana’s research was proven to be beneficial for the first graders in Thailand learning English phonemic awareness. We can agree that phonics is an essential skill that fosters reading comprehension skills to run more smoothly as they progress. However, little was discussed on how students responded to the whole language approach when given phonics instructions. The phonic-based intervention activities allowed them to make gains compared to the whole language approach. More information is needed to determine how intervention activities were implemented. The researchers only mentioned the whole group approach, student-centered and teacher-directed learning (Tarat & Sucaromana, 2014). It gives the reader questions on whether a small group would have made more of a difference with the intervention.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the research supports that the Elkonin Boxes evidence-based intervention can help students become more successful with phonemic awareness when done in a whole group lesson or as a small intervention group. Elkonin Boxes, known as letter/sound boxes, have benefited students who are and are not native English speakers and monolingual languages like Spanish. We know from the research that students in the primary elementary setting typically have Elkonin Boxes incorporated into their curriculum since those grades tend to focus more on phonemic awareness than the upper elementary grades. However, more research for upper grades would be beneficial for researchers to find how Elkonin Boxes can be beneficial for students in the upper grades since they work with multisyllabic words in their complex texts.
The reading curriculum focuses more on comprehension skills and strategies in the upper grades. Some comprehension questions relate to understanding vocabulary words in and out of context. Elkonin Boxes can be used to break down vocabulary words based on their pre, root, and suffix or break them into syllables for them to learn to decode. This would allow students to continue using something they already know how to do and to apply it to more complex materials. In other words, students could continue using their long-term memory with this application in complex text. In the end, students can incorporate evidence-based practice in their independent learning, which is something that all teachers want for students to keep applying skills they know to help them.
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