HOW TO USE Sound Boxes

Let’s Make Words!

Sound boxes are a great tool to help students to practice writing sounds they hear in the correct sequence. Read this blog post to learn how you could incorporate Sound Boxes into your guided reading instruction!

Hi, there! We’re about two months into the school year and I’m sure you’re gearing up to teach your students how to use what they know about sounds to make words. I want to tell you about how to use Sound Boxes in your instruction and share a freebie!

Teaching Foundational Skills

One of the most important foundational skills that emerging readers learn is the letter/sound relationship. Each letter makes a sound and when you put these sounds together, they make up words. This means that students need to be experts at identifying letters and sounds.

Sound Boxes

Students that struggle with this skill tend to make errors like saying hat instead of hot or ban instead of bat. A strategy you could use is Sound Boxes, also known as Elkonian boxes. With sound boxes, students write each sound they hear in a box in sequential order.

How do I teach it?

Say the word. Have them say the word.
Tell them how many sounds are in the word. Show it with your fingers.
Have students tap the sounds.
Have students write the letters of each sound they hear in sequence.

Here’s a Youtube Video that demonstrates what this looks like.

Sound Boxes are a staple of my Word Work instruction during guided reading. After I played this “game” with my students they were able to play this game during literacy centers with a partner.

How Do You Spell…?

This fun, partner, Sound Boxes game! There are two players: the reader and the writer. The reader reads the word. The writer writes the word. The reader checks the word. If the word is incorrect, the writer tries again. If the word is spelled correctly, the reader and the writer switch roles.