Sometimes its very handy to pass a variable to an Element in Cakephp3.

This allows you to customize the element if needed;
To do so simply;

in your view file;

echo $this->element('helpbox', [
    "helptext" => "Oh, this text is very helpful."
]);

What does it do?
This will load the element called “helpbox” and pass the value “Oh, this text is very helpful.” to the variable called “helptext” in the element.

CakePHP3 Book:
http://book.cakephp.org/3.0/en/views.html#passing-variables-into-an-element