Colours, Alphabets and Numbers

...and the whole process of teaching to our children.

When my son was one and a half years old, we took a trip that involved a lot of traveling - trains, buses, metros and taxis. I took a couple of books (of course) and a small magnetic slate to keep him occupied for when the euphoria of the vehicle in question would wash off and boredom and tantrums would set in. It started with me drawing simple stuff and him wiping the slate clean then slowly turned into a guessing game. I drew apples, bananas, spoons, suns, stars, moons, flowers, houses and whatnots. Fans and fishes were his favourite. After a while I got bored of drawing the same things and started looking up drawings of animals and vehicles online - lion, sheep, duck, monkey, elephant, car, bus, truck etc (google for “doodle animals” and “doodle vehicles”) and this game went to another level. We learned a lot of animal names, what sounds they made, vehicle names, their horns and their vroom-vrooms and so on and so forth. I sometimes got a little irritated because he never picked up the pencil; he would only ask me to draw. Patience - I told myself, that time will come too.

I did not know back then, that this was going to be THE way to get through to him. I can now teach him anything through drawings because I always have his full attention when we draw together. We used our drawing skills to learn shapes and started playing matching games. I drew some shapes on the left hand side, drew the same shapes out of order on the right hand side and asked him to match. Did the same with monkeys and lions and buses and cars. Then with colours. Then with numbers and then with alphabets.

Find out what captures their attention

If every child is different, then why should every child be taught the same way? How would you feel, if you were made to watch a slow and boring movie in an unknown language? You would rather stop watching it and do something fun instead, right? That’s how a child would possibly feel if you start teaching them something in a way they do not connect at all.

If you spend enough time with your child, by playing with them and doing various activities, and get to know your child well, you will know what your child loves the most and what gets their full attention. It could be drawing, dancing, singing, playing with their favourite toy, painting, playing in the garden, jumping or running around. Use that interest to teach them and they will not only learn quickly but also enjoy the process of learning.

Don't get me wrong, just one interest and one way will not be sufficient at all. You will have to find new and engaging ways to teach them. Innovation is the necessity of a parent.

I did not start teaching letters and numbers seriously until my boy turned two. There is no right or wrong age for this too. Wait for the child to be ready, do not rush. Here are some tips that might help you.

Colours:

1. Start with basic colours - red, blue, yellow and green. Again, follow the child. If they like a particular colour more, give that colour more. Pink was and still is my boy’s favourite colour and it was also the colour he identified first.

2. Identify and refer to every object with a colour - Do you want to wear the red dress today? Can you bring me the blue truck? (Even when there is only one truck in sight) and so on.

3. Make colourful meals. Meal time conversations can now revolve around red tomatoes, green cucumbers and yellow omelettes.

4. Introduce a lot of activities around colouring and painting. Sorting based on colours, matching based on colours etc.

5. Compare identical coloured objects. For example - make a giant red coloured square on the floor and keep all their red coloured toys in that square.

6. If you have started matching, make some matching games around colours. (I highly recommend matching activities as this teaches them the concept of association)

7. Play 'I spy..' (until the sound of it makes you gag!)

8. Take it slow. It can take from 2 - 6 months from the time you start doing all these things for them to start identifying one or more colours. Some may take less time, some may take more. Do not rush them at any cost (this applies to everything actually).

Alphabets:

There are various thought processes on teaching children alphabets and reading. Some introduce alphabets directly, some start with phonics. Within phonics also there are a lot of different ways to teach a child - depending on your child (this is purely my observation, because I strongly believe that every child is different and one formula can not and should not be applied to all of them). I will go with what I did, you can modify my method to suit your child.

There is a homeschooling mother - Jady A. I absolutely admire her ways of teaching and love the activities she sets up for her 5 children, whom she is homeschooling. This is her website. She has amazing content on teaching phonics (all her stuff is amazing actually). Do check out her youtube videos. I learnt about phonics and how to start teaching them to children through her videos.

There are 3 points to learning alphabets:

1. The name of the letter

2. The sound a letter makes and

3. Identifying the name and the sound with the letter itself.

For example: ’T or t’ is called ‘tee’ and it makes the sound /t/ (sounds like 'TUH').

This is what we did:

1. We began with beginning sounds of words. Tiger starts with /t/, snake starts with /s/ - using the phonetic sounds (not the names of the letters). Started with only 3 letters - A, S and T. However this did not work - he did not like S and T, he was more interested in B and D - so I went with it.

2. Every time I drew an animal or played with animal figurines, I associated the animal with a beginning sound.

3. For a long time, I could tell that he would tell the beginning sounds by memory (from what I had taught him) rather than making the actual connection with the sound. But I just continued. And one fine day, it clicked.

4. Once he was able to identify the beginning sounds, I started showing him letters associated with that sound through our drawings and matching games.

5. Once he was comfortable with that, I started introducing the names of those letters (we are currently at this stage).

It was a gradual process and took months. My advice would be to go easy, take only a few letters at a time. Letters like W, X, Y etc can be introduced much later. Go very very slow and take a lot of time. Practice everyday, but keep the conversation on all the time. For example when you go for walks - look there is a beautiful tree. Tree starts with /t/.

Numbers:

Again there are 2 aspects to counting:

1. Counting

2. Identifying the count with the number

You probably would have started teaching your child numbers (1 - 10). But at the moment they are only random words for your child. They need to understand the concept of quantifying and associate the quantity visually with a number. For example: if you see ⚽🏀🥎, your mind immediately visualises the number 3.

Here are some tips:

1. Start with only the first 5 numbers.

2. Count everything. Yes, everything under the sun, all the freaking time! Number of plates set on the table, number of wheels in that car, number of chairs in your house, number of red coloured toys, number of pots in your garden - just everything.

3. Start some number matching games (I hope you have introduced matching - if not, you MUST!)

4. Introduce counting activities - plethora of ideas available on the Internet.

5. Once your child has mastered the first 5 numbers, introduce the next 4. Yes, only till 9 first. Then, introduce 0. And only after all this, the 2 digit numbers.

Again, everything I have written is what has worked for me and my child. It may or may not work for your child. The key to effective teaching & learning is to find out what's the best way to teach your child.

Some important points to keep in mind while working with children:

1. You have to take things extremely slowly, with a lot of activities and games. They need to enjoy the process of learning. Don’t rush at any cost, because you do not want them to develop a dislike for learning sessions.

2. Always make sure your child is in a good mood when you are working with them - their tummy should be full, they should be well rested and should not be tired.

3. The moment it gets overwhelming, or when either of you starts getting frustrated, stop immediately. We do not want that bad energy around learning sessions.

4. Feel free to take a step back if the child is not ready. Well, feel free to take several steps back if you feel the child is not ready. When you take a step back and do something they already know well, they feel good about themselves and their confidence gets a boost.

5. Practice everyday. Children learn quickly, but they also forget quickly. So keep practicing everyday even if they have understood a concept quite well.

6. Keep a routine. Children do not thrive in chaos. Fixed bedtimes and nap times, morning routines, meals at proper times - help children to be calmer, more relaxed and focused.

7. Patience is the key.

Good luck!