Color Rules

•••Long vowels

Red letters a e i o are long vowels sounds. They say their alphabet name, as in cake, meat, ice, or blow. The red u is like the u in blue or true.
A red y can be any one of three vowels:
• It can say a as in they.
• It can say e as in baby.
• It can say i as in my.

•••Short vowels

Orange letters a e i o are short vowel sounds:
hat, pat, pan, am, ask,
net, red, pet, pen, men, end, met,
it, lit, pit, lid, ink, link, him, pin,
not, lot, pot, stop, nod, off.

•••Schwa vowels and short u vowels

Purple letters represent a short u sound, called schwa:
the, son, sun, from, run, up, come, above, love,
lump, hub, some, sum, cut, but. 

•••Vowels blended with consonants r, l, or ng

Blue letters represent combinations of consonants r, l, or ng bonded with a vowel. These consonants are pronounced with the vowel, affecting the vowel sound:
fir, fur, first, far, all, ill, acre, table, bull, cult, ring, song.

••• Letters that do not fit other rules

Letters that do not fit other Reading with Color rules
are green:
down, out, cow, mouse, boy, toy, book
creation, phone

Reading with Color uses the same letter shapes as conventional black on white printing. The exciting difference is that color distinguishes the various sounds that one letter may represent. This phonics approach can be used in combination with reading whole sentences, such as in the stories included on this website. Students develop meaningful sight vocabulary more quickly with this method because it allows for more rapid word processing of new and unfamiliar words.