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.
What do you all think?
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