Monday was National Color Day so we’re looking at how kids learn their colors and what you can do to help.

Why learning colors is tough work:

It’s quite an abstract concept to understand what kids go through when we are teaching them colors. When we point to something and say ‘red’, children are going to see the object that is red, surrounded by other objects, backgrounds and surfaces that are different colors.

This means, they never see a new color without seeing other colors along with it. So it takes a little while for little ones to correctly associate the word red with the color. Mind boggling right?

How parents can teach kids colors:

There are a few simple things that us parents can do to help kids work out their colors:

You can start helping them with colors even when they are babies. Surround them with vivid colors and tell them the names of the colors and you’ll be setting them off on the right foot.

Start off with primary colors to avoid making things more confusing. Point to the colored object and repeat the name of the color so they can clearly understand that word is associated with what they’re seeing.

They are trying to work out what aspect of an object makes it ‘red’ and so when we use phrases like ‘the red balloon’ it might make it trickier. ‘The balloon is red’ however helps them understand that ‘red’ is a defining feature of the balloon.

How we help kids learn colors:

The Curious World app has lots of games, books and videos to help kids learn their colors. 'Moo Cat' helps kids see the difference in colors by having them easily comparable to each other, and 'Herbster Readers' are books that go through one color per book with lots of repetition to keep things simple.