Elkonin's Method for Developing Language Skills
Preparation of preschool and early elementary school children for reading
About the method Elkonin
The Elkonin method differs from common methods used in teaching reading. Its principles and peculiarities can be summarized as follows:
At the core of reading is decoding the code, revealing the relationship between letters and sounds in words. Although it may seem like a visual task at first glance, it's actually about "sounding out" the words being read. Only words that children "sound out" while reading have meaning. A sequence of letters (D-O-G) is not yet a read word that means something.
Therefore, reading is considered a linguistic task. The processing of a read word occurs in linguistic units. Only in this way is it possible to understand what is read.
In this method, unlike other classic methods, the approach is from spoken words to written words. Children first learn to understand the phonemic structure of spoken words (we say they learn to hear the sounds in words), and only then do they learn how to represent these sounds with letters.
For example, only when children understand that the word "pes" (dog in Czech) has three sounds p-e-s, they learn that the word "pes" can be represented by the letters P-E-S.
Sounds and words
For small children, it is difficult to understand that the word 'SNAKE' is shorter than the word 'CATERPILLAR.' To help children know which sounds words are made of, we use visual modeling: we label sounds with colored tokens, and children build words from the tokens. Gradually, they learn to hear sounds in words even without the help of tokens.
The entire methodology is presented in an engaging story form; children explore the Land of Words and Sounds and get acquainted with its inhabitants. For example, Master Length extends sounds in words, Master Syllable divides words into syllables, and so on.
The main distinction of the Elkonin method, however, lies in the fact that children do not learn through trial and error or mechanically memorize individual elements. They learn to understand the principles and rules of how words are formed from sounds. "And how spoken words can be represented by letters. Once they grasp these general rules, they can then read any word. We bridge the development of spoken language and reading/writing, enhancing the understanding of words. The method thus develops the thinking and cognitive abilities of children."
For whom is the method intended
určena
• All preschool-aged children, before entering primary school, participate in a stimulative program
• Children with delayed school enrollment
• Children with speech development difficulties
• For children whose parents are dyslexic
• Children with developmental disorders
• For children from a foreign language environment (strengthening language sensitivity)
• For school children who struggle with reading in the early years of school attendance