My 2 1/2 year old is fairly expressive, he says a lot and expresses a lot though garbled and misaligned grammar, but we usually get his point. He also keeps me, my husband and our older children highly amused with his adventures in language. Whenever the color of an item comes up though, he generalizes everything to “geen,” or his newest, “dark.” Such a male (insert eye roll). It’s made us wonder if maybe he’s colorblind, of which I have no experience in understanding or diagnosing.
This morning while I was still enjoying my coffee in bed, my son brought down a stacker of wooden circles. It’s the same stacker my husband used with our older kids to teach colors. Of course, now it’s missing about 40% of the colors. Sorry 5th child,
Mom and Dad sometimes feel tired and old. So while my lazy butt enjoyed my coffee, my son took the colored circles and asked “This one?” He was wanting to know the color of each circle, and as I named each color, he repeated me. He then tried to label them on his own and got it all wrong. Hmmmm. Can he not see the difference in color? Is it maybe his retention that’s the issue???
So, from the dark depths of my therapy days, I took the circles, laid them on my bedside table and said, “Blue” and outstretched my hand to him. He handed me the blue, “Green” same correct response, “Orange” and he was correct again. Duh!!
Receptive understanding often comes before Expressive. We have to understand what’s being said to us, before we can understand how to say it.
I can’t teach Geometry until I have a perfect receptive understanding of it. Babies listen long before they speak. My son can see the difference in color, I just needed to take a second and dig into my toolbox and teach the colors receptively.
This morning was such a great reminder of how important it is to speak, label and test our kids’ receptive understanding.
That is where they build their dictionary of terms that they later use to make expressive statements. To many of my colleagues, this is 101 stuff, hence my embarrassment, but it is a huge reminder that as parents, seeing the forest for the trees is so, so hard sometimes. The daily stresses, tasks, house commotion, and maybe a little worry that your child may be struggling, can be barriers to seeing that clear solution to the problem. So I am going to collectively let us all off the hook, we deserve it.
Start by laying out 3-4 primary colors. Using something like a stacker is great, you give them the stacker, you keep the colors. As they get the correct answer, they get to stack each one. Built in reinforcement, you are welcome!
Just label the color, “Green.” Use a point prompt at first if needed. Try and keep your language simple, I love just using the noun, or in this case the adjective. We can get super wordy with questions like “Can you find me the green?” but that’s a ton of words for an early language learner, when we really just want them to hear “Green.”
As they start to show understanding of one color, start to add in 1-2 more, and so on. Keep it fun and easy, if they lose interest, that’s okay, come back to it later. Maybe get super silly or use a sing-songy voice to keep them interested. Always remember to pair lots of social praise with your reinforcer (in this case the colored circles). “Awesome job!,” “That’s right!” “You are so smart!” are a few great examples
If you’ve had similar success with this approach or are just going to try it, I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments below!
