What is the pink series in Montessori?
The pink series should only be introduced once the child has mastered:
- the sandpaper letters (click the link to see the lesson)
- sound basket
The pink, blue and green series is a three-stage process in which children learn to read and write. The Montessori method was developed in Italy by Maria Montessori. When learning to read and write in Italian it is purely phonetic. When reading and writing in English this isn’t the case, and so the pink, blue and green series was developed.
Like any other skill reading and writing needs a good foundation in order to build off of.
The pink series is the first stage of the series. It allows children to be able to decode words using simple vowel sounds. This is the foundation of reading and writing and uses the CVC format of consonant-vowel consonants.
Example: cat, hat, hop, pop, mat , sit
When using the pink series children write or build words with the movable alphabet before they read. (link to movable alphabet below) This is called encoding before decoding.
The pink series has multiple groups of words. The group is made up of 5 words with the same vowel sound. When the child works on this lesson they can choose whatever group of words they want to work with.
Use this pink series with the movable alphabet and start with sounding out. The child can choose what group they want to work with. They choose the first picture and place it on the mat. They sound out the word and find the corresponding letter in the movable alphabet.
For example cat : c a t
Each group works with one vowel at a time. This makes it easy for children to spot the vowel and each consecutive word becomes easier to decode.
When the child is able to decode the word you then move on to reading and matching the word. The reason we do not do this as a first step is because the child will remember the first sound and make assumptions rather than decoding the entire word.
The pink series can take a while to get through. Make sure not to rush and allow the child to have as much practice with this work as possible before moving on to the blue series.