http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-johnny-name-colors/
I came across this article, and I found it thought provoking since I am currently teaching my daughter her colors.
They did a study on 2-3 year olds and found that very few actually knew their colors despite their parents’ enthusiasm about their children already knowing their colors. They set out to find out why they didn’t know their colors.
In the English language we tend to place colors prenominally which means before the noun, as in “the blue car”. The researchers believed this to be one of the issues causing confusion in children, so they took some 2 year olds and split them up into two groups. One group received a quick lesson on colors using the colors prenominally and the other group received instruction with the color being said postnominally (after the noun) as in “the car is blue”. They found a significant improvement in color recognition in the group who was given a lesson using colors postnominally whereas the children who were given a lesson saying colors prenominally did not improve.
This may be worth trying for those of you who are teaching your children their colors. Instead of saying “look at the blue car”, say “look at the car that is blue”. It may help them learn their colors a bit faster and with less confusion. The article describes why using colors prenominally can be confusing to young children.
It also goes into more depth about colors and languages that you can read in the link above, but I thought I would just share with you the main points and the results so as not to make the post too long.
This makes sense to me. I have always taught it post nominally and never had any trouble. I use pronominal sentences for reinforcement. It’s interesting just how often you here teaching colour examples that are clearly not best practice.
I try and build solid associations when teaching colors. Green like the grass works here as our grass is always green. Leaves change so that wouldn’t work. Sadly we can’t do blue like the sky or white like clouds either. We use white like snow instead. Works great when we have snow. But we do things like yellow like the dogs bed or red like the family member’s car.
When I taught my 2 year old colors, I chose one color, and for a day or 2 we would point to everything RED.
I would point to 10-15 objects in a day all with the same color, usually with his toys, or things
in the kitchen. I would say, This ball is RED. Let’s point to some other things that are RED>
Then 2 or 3 days later we would point to everything blue, repeating the same method,
of pointing to objects of the same colors. After doing several colors, we would start pointing
to things of 2 different colors. Point to something RED, OK, now point to
something BLUE. I emphasized what colors his clothes were and other familiar objects.
By the time he was 26 months he could point to various colors when I asked him. Later as he began talking,
I used the colors in phrases and sentences. But by that time he had been able to identify the colors by pointing
for several months.
This seems like a great approach…I will definitely try to dedicate every few days to a different color in addition to saying the color ‘after’ the noun as the article suggests. I’ll try to create an environment for her that is filled with opportunities to show the color of the day.
Thanks for the tip!
Good Luck to those who are teaching colors. As stated previously, I taught by choosing ONE color and POINTING to it.
I rarely bothered with the NOUN so I didn’t have to worry whether I said the “BLUE car” or the car is blue. I just
pointed to things and said BLUE- BLUE. Then I asked my DS to point to something BLUE. On a different day, we
did another color. This makes more sense to
me than the original article, since you can do it with a child who is not yet very verbal. Also I think that you should NOT point
to things that are far away, such as “grass”. Stick with items which are near to the child, such as toys.