Pink, Blue, Green Reading Series

The Pink, Blue, Green Reading Series is a system for organizing English words in order to teach children to spell and read them. It was developed by Margaret Homfray and Phoebe Child.
The alternative to this series is the Muriel Dwyer Reading Scheme. With Montessorians who have tried both, the preference seems to be for the Dwyer Scheme.

Sandpaper Letters

With this reading series, the single-letter sandpaper letters are all taught first, and the double sandpaper letters are put off until much later.

Word Groups

Pink Words

These are VC (vowel-consonant) or CVC words. Each phoneme (sound) in the words is spelled with a single letter. Only short vowels are used.

Examples:
in, on, if, at
cat, dog, mat, pig, sit

Blue Words

These are VCC, CVCC, CCVC, or CCVCC words. Each phoneme in the words is spelled with a single letter except for double-letter consonants at the ends of words, and the digraph 'ck'. Only short vowels are used.

Examples:
belt, hill, grab, stamp, brick

Green Words

These are words that include digraphs in only the spellings given by the Double Sandpaper Letters.

Examples:
sail, brush, teeth, float, book

Further Reading

• The Morris-Montessori Word List by Joyce Morris