In Montessori Education, the Pink Series is a set of language object boxes where all of the objects represent a Consonant Vowel Consonant (CVC) word and have a matching index card. There are 5 pink boxes used in the Montessori classroom and they are: 1) pink box 1 – objects with moveable alphabets 2) pink box 2 – pictures with moveable alphabets 3) pink box 3 – objects and words 4) pink box 4 – pictures and words 5) pink box 5 – mystery game
When the child has mastered pink box 5 and is able to read words without contextual clues, there will be a list of words (usually between eight and ten) with a picture at the top of the card. The reading lists may concentrate on the medial sound, i.e all words will have the vowel ‘a, e, i, o, u’, or an initial or final consonant sound. When teaching the child in the classroom or at home, a good way to use these lists is for the reinforcement of a rhyming sound.
In the classroom, when presenting the reading lists to the child, the teacher will introduce firstly the material and explain that they need to start reading from the top of the list. The teacher will then encourage the child to read the list and explain that there are many more lists available for him/ her to read on their own. An extension of the activity would be to invite the child to write the words in their workbooks as well as add the objects/pictures around the classroom or household to see if they could find the object written on the paper.
The objective with regards to teaching the child to blend and read the three-letter words is to extend their reading practice and reading vocabulary in preparation for reading short sentences and short stories.
“If writing serves to correct, or rather, to direct and perfect the mechanism of speech in the child, reading assists in the development of ideas and language."
- Maria Montessori -
