The Montessori Blue Phonics Series introduces children to consonant blends at the beginning and end of words, and to digraphs (sometimes called consonant clusters). The Blue Phonics Series includes pictures, 3-part cards, and word lists. It follows, and builds upon, the Montessori Pink Series. The CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) pattern of the Pink Series easily extends to include blends. For example, “sip” (CVC) can include a blend with the word “slip” (CCVC).
The new patterns in the Montessori Blue Series are CCVC (slip), CVCC (gift) or CCVCC (block).
Teach Beginning Blends First
Beginning consonant blends consist of two (sometimes three) consonants together at the beginning of a word where each consonant sound is equally represented. For example, when we have the blend “sl”, we still hear each distinct sound (/s/ and /l/), however they sort of melt, or fuse, together into a unit as we say it.
Teach two letter consonant blends first, then three letter consonant blends. To begin to read with the Montessori Blue Phonics Series children work with a consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant (CCVC) word pattern.
Next, Teach Ending Blends
After introducing beginning consonant blends, we can introduce children to ending blends. Words in the Blue Series ending blends sets can include a blend at the beginning and at the end of a word (craft).The patterns are CVCC (gift) or CCVCC (craft).
Next, Teach Digraphs
Digraphs are two consonants together at the beginning or end of a word where a new sound is made. For example, when the letter “s” and “h” are next to each other, they no longer make their individual sounds. Instead they make a new sound, /sh/.
Materials Used to Teach Blends and Digraphs
Several Montessori materials are used when working with blends and digraphs.
Objects
Objects that represent blends and digraphs at the beginning and end of words impress the experience of isolating and identifying those phonems (small parts of sounds) in words. Phonemic awareness games like “I Spy” create a fun gamelike learning experience for children.
Blue Series Pictures
After objects, pictures can be matched with written words or used with the moveable alphabet to build the words.
The Moveable Alphabet
The Moveable Alphabet helps children build a word as they listen for the sounds at the beginning, middle, and end of a word and then choose a letter symbol to represent that sound. Children encode and decode words with the Blue series pictures to begin reading bigger words.
Extension Game: Word Families (Rhyming Words)
A rhyming word has the same middle vowel followed by consonants. For example, stick, pick, flick all rhyme becase they end with -ick. Now that children know blends, they can begin to expand their knowledge of rhyming words to include rhyms with a shared vowel and ending blend or digraph.
Provide Authentic Reading Opportunities
To become strong and experienced readers, children need opportunities to practice their new skills with real books. Offer decodable reader texts that build on reading skills to give them the necessary practice for success.
