Teaching Colors

When Mikey was younger, his language abilities were further behind than his other skills (they are still further behind, although not as profoundly).  He could identify colors before he could say the color names.  If you’re looking to teach your child colors, I’ll share some ideas and you can see what you think might work for your child.

Sorting

There are many toys that teach sorting by color.  They’re readily available at every toy store or online. If you want to make one yourself, start with two or three colors.  Let’s say, red, yellow and blue.  Get a piece of construction paper in each of the colors.  Then gather items that are solid red, yellow and green.  We used to have crafting supplies around and I used some pom poms in the three colors.  Maybe 4 or 5 of each color would be a good place to start…not too many to be overwhelming, but enough to show the pattern. I showed Mikey by doing it myself; I modeled the activity for him.

Then, I did it with him. Hand over hand, meaning I put my hand on his and guided him to sort all of the red pom poms onto the red piece of paper. We did the same for the other two colors.  Note that he doesn’t need any words at all to do these steps.

Finally, I gave him the pom poms and asked him to sort by color.  You could use a simple phrase like, “Now, Mikey try it.”

Adding Colors

Once this task is mastered with three colors, you can try it with different ones or the whole rainbow.  Your child may find it fun!

Adding Words

At some point you may think about labeling each piece of paper with the name of the color.  This may not have meaning for your child initially, but over time, it may help to teach some basic reading.

Labeling Colors

If your child can sort by color, you can ask them “What color?” with lots of different objects. If your child can’t speak yet, you may want to give them a printed page with different color squares.  They could point to the correct color to match the object. If your child has an AAC, they can push the button for that color.

Maybe they are starting to make sounds and they can approximate the “b” sound for blue.  If that happens, show them how happy and proud you are. Celebrate the attempt at saying blue so they will keep trying and build their speaking muscles in a positive way.

Who knew learning colors could involve so much fun?!?