Green Series: Phonograms

Direct aim. To read and spell words that contain phonograms, letter groups with one sound.

Indirect aims, the ones you will not see at once

One card per phonogram, with the letters together, as sandpaper to trace or printed. Montessori's 1912 sandpaper cards already included larger cards with groups of letters on them.

The usual first set is five: sh, ch, th, ck, ee. Later ones such as ai, oa, oo, ar, ow and igh follow a few at a time.

For each phonogram, six to ten words to read, written on slips or in a small folder or booklet, with the phonogram in another color if you like: ship, shop, fish, dish.

The moveable alphabet, plus a second alphabet in another color for the phonograms, or the pairs written on cards.

The green color scheme is later than Montessori's books. Her 1917 book notes that English teaching uses phonograms because English spelling isn't phonetic.

1. 1Lay out two phonogram cards the child hasn't met, such as sh and ee.Silent Two cards only, side by side.
2. 2Trace sh with two fingers, left to right, and say its sound once: "sh".Say "sh." The sound, never "ess-aitch".
3. 3Do the same with ee, then give the three periods: name, then "Show me sh", then "What is this?"Say "This is sh. This is ee." Then "Show me ee." Then "What is this?"
4. 4Build a short word with the moveable alphabet and the sh card: s-h-i-p. Read it slowly, then faster, until it's "ship".Say "sh-i-p", slowly, then faster. Two letters, one sound.
5. 5Give the child a slip or folder page of sh words to read: shop, fish, dish, shell.Say "Can you read these?" Then wait.
6. 6Point out the phonogram in each word as it's read, and let the child find the rest.Silent A finger under the sh is enough.
7. 7On another day, dictate two or three words for the child to build: sheep, shed.Say "Build sheep." Say the word once and let the child work.

Two letters making a sound neither makes alone.

Fish and dish ending the same way.

Finding sh on a shop sign, a cereal box, a book cover.

A word with two phonograms in it, like sheep.

The words themselves. A word read with the wrong sound doesn't mean anything, so the child hears the mistake. A folder whose words all share one phonogram also lets the child check each word against the card.

Montessori’s name for this check is the control of error.

• A folder or booklet of words for each phonogram, read until it's easy
• Sorting word slips by phonogram: all the ee words, then all the ai words
• Two spellings of one sound side by side, such as rain beside play
• Phonogram objects or pictures with labels, matched like the blue series
• Reading signs, labels and packaging in the house and on walks

Variations

This work needs only the material, so it has no printable of its own. The shelf plan below places it among the other works for the same age.

Free to print for your family, no email needed. Print at 100%, not “fit to page”, so the drawings keep their scale. Every printable on the site is listed on the printables page.

Ready for the first presentation

Ready for the next lesson

Small phonogram objects are choking hazards for a child under 3. Use pictures if a toddler is around.

We have not bought the paid homeschool curricula, so they are not listed here.

1. Maria Montessori, The Montessori Elementary Material (1917)

   Part I, Grammar

   In English the phonetic difficulties of the language are lessened by teaching phonograms, combinations of vowels and consonants that have nearly constant sounds.

   The child first pronounces the sounds of the letters without understanding, then repeats the word more and more rapidly until he discovers its accent and recognizes it.

2. Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method (1912)

   Chapter XVII, Description of the Method and Didactic Material Used

   Besides the single sandpaper letters there are larger cards with groups of letters, in black sandpaper on white cards, grouped to call attention to contrasted or analogous forms.

   In teaching the letters we pronounce the sound, not the name, and as soon as the sound is given the child traces the sandpaper letter with his index finger in the sense of writing.

   Chapter XVII, Reading

   Reading is the interpretation of an idea from written signs; a child who recognizes a word composed on the table and can tell what it means is reading.

   A child who knows how to write reads the component sounds of a word as slowly as he would write them, and its sense becomes evident only when it is pronounced with its accent.

   Hundreds of written slips were left in open boxes, and each child emptied the box under his hand before passing to another.

   Children began reading the printed words on a calendar, and mothers reported that their children stopped in the street to read the signs over the shops.

Lesson text and the scope and sequence are CC BY 4.0: reuse them with credit to Owen Wren, Homeschool Montessori, and a link. Photos and illustrations are all rights reserved. Terms.