How Old Was Your Child When They Knew Colors?

as early as 18 months....& usually before age 3. It is very rare to go beyond 3. What concerns me is that she is telling you that she can't grasp it. Has she ever been tested for color blindness? Just a thought......

At 2.5 my boys began recognizing what words were colors. They will be three next month and have had colors mastered for about two months now. I didn't push it at all, just exposed them. I wouldn't worry yet.

SOLID on ALL the basic colors? My son was 4. He was in a pre-K class where I would volunteer twice a month and I never stopped being SHOCKED at the kids who were 4 and did NOT know their colors! Some of them might only be able to tell me 1 color correctly if any at all. I think children are just little people, each of whom have different strengths and weaknesses and they DEFINITELY develop at different rates! Most end up knowing all that needs to be known in the end.
I like to remind myself of the difference between my sister and myself...she is older and waaaay more successful than I am, but CANNOT do math in her head! So she buys dinner and I calculate the tip! :)

Our daughter's daycare teacher told us she thought our daughter was color blind... She was very verbal and ahead of her age in most areas, but did not know her colors. I don't remember for sure how old she was, but about the age of your daughter. I kinda freaked out. I bought a color test online that was designed to test kids for color blindness before they are old enough to read. She wasn't colorblind... (I spend $100 on the test and it told us in one minute that she could see the differences between colors. I donated it to the daycare teacher so she wouldn't scare any other parents with this nonsense.)

Children's brains and abilities develop unevenly. Some areas will be advanced and some "behind" for their age. At 2 1/2, she is too young to worry about learning her colors. She will learn this and other skills, when that part of her brain is developed enough. Besides, it is rare for girls to be colorblind, it is more common in boys.

My first child knew and could recognize (point to) colors when she was 18 months, and could say them all shortly after. My 16 month old knows red, blue, yellow, and green...we're working on the rest. Colors are something that are very easy to teach, because our world is one of color...just use every opportunity to describe something with color. It's not "put on this shirt," it's "Put on this red shirt, please" or "hand me your blue cup" or whatever.

However, to be fair, my husband and I are both musicians and artists and things like this tend to come very easy for our children. My six year old still cannot tie her shoes or ride a bike, and I know lots of younger children that can do these things. It all balances.

My kids, both of them, were 2 years old when they knew colors.
And by 3, they knew their shapes.

Some kids are not as visual.
Kids at this age, mostly are auditory.... up until about 8 years old.

Your daughter is normal.
There is a wide range of it.
And by year end, a lot can change.
Don't make her feel self-conscious though.

She may be just slow on recognizing colors. This is okay. She may also be colorblind. The fact that she says "I don't know any colors mommy" tends to support the idea that she might be colorblind. This is also okay.

To translate her statement (if she is colorblind) into adult non-colorblind speech. "I see lots of colors in the world. But the labels you give colors doesn't match the colors I am seeing. When I describe the colors I see, people say I am wrong. I haven't figured out what this pattern means yet."

This might make a lot more sense if you take a look at this site:
http://critiquewall.com/2007/12/10/blindness

If you're concerned about it, you can find simple colorblindness tests online or at the library. Don't spend $100 on a kit.

My son is yellow-blue colorblind. He was six before he sheepishly confessed that gray squirrels look pink to him. Now, when he asks me what color something is, I reply "It looks orange to my eyes. What does it look like to your eyes?" Usually it looks the same to him. Sometimes it looks different. It depends on the exact tones of the color in question.

Hope this helps.

I think my babe might be an artist, she knew her colors before she could talk and "color words" were some of her first words. She had a couple of different color books and she would ALWAYS turn to the correct page, by about a year. She is 2 months younger than your daughter now and loves (!) to learn the different colors, right now she is likes to tell the different shades of colors, violet, lilac, teal, maroon, etc. But she is NOT the norm.

I think the best way to teach colors is from books (like you already are!) and in the car or on walks. You don't really have to "teach" it you just work it into everyday conversation. "look at the green leaves on the tree" "Mommy sees a yellow car next to us." etc.

Also color together, have her pick out a color of construction paper and tell her what it is, sit down with her and talk her through it. "can you pass mommy that yellow crayon?" "Can you draw with the pink?" and guide and help her along the way.

Before being a mom I used to teach first grade and I could not believe the number of kids that would come into my class and not know shapes and colors. I think they should know the basics (from the 8 pack of crayolas :)) before kindergarten. Don't get worried/upset she will get it in her time. All kids pick things up a little differently.

I think it's great she can tell you she doesn't know her colors! That is pretty perceptive for 2.5.
My boys were early, like 18-20 months. My daughter is 2.5 (she'll be 3 in Nov.) and she's just getting them now. She still makes mistakes sometimes.

J.

my toddler is 2 1/2 and he knows, Red Green Blue Yellow Orange Purple White Brown Black. BUT, he cant count on his own but will either count with you or mimic. He is starting to learn his alphbet etc. every child is different and learns at different ages. he has a speech delay due to cleft lip and palate so we are working more on letter sounds and such.

My son was like this too! He would always get them mixed up, but by 3 years old he really started to get them right. My daughter is 2 and knows them really well already, but I think the difference is because she has learned so much from watching her brother.
HTH,
A.

My oldest son knew them early, at 2. I went to work in an ECI program when he was 9 mos. The next year, he started noticing that all the fire hydrants were a different color in the different cities we drove through commuting.
My younger son was probably closer to four.

I'm not sure what age kids start to learn their colors, it depends on how much their parents expose them to color words. My daughter learned at an early age because we did things like "Do you want the red or blue cup?" "Can you get me your green socks?" So it was just a part of our day, not taught in isolation.

If you have spent a lot of time on this she may be color blind. Talk to your doctor at her next apt.

My son knew his colors by the time he turned 2. For a few months before that you could ask him to hand you a yellow block and he would, but if you said "What color is this block?" he always responded "red." It's like the concept of "color" took him longer to get than the actual recognition of what yellow looks like and what green looks like. I think it's all about what they find to be important at the time. She just might not be interested in colors, so she doesn't care to learn them.

My son knew them at around 18 months, but he was also speaking full sentences then too. My daughter is 26 months right now and knows all of them except black, white, silver and gold, we are working on those four.

I'm glad you are not worried!

There is no reason to discuss or push colors with her, as if they are something to be worked on and mastered. Just work them into your conversations, not asking questions of her. Describe everything with the color or other concept wish to expose her to. One of my children knew all colors by 3, the other didn't care a bit, and learned them by 5 and 1/2 (yikes!), and they are both successful college graduates. My best to yu and your daughter.

Every child is different maybe she is concentrating on learning other things right now. I know my youngest learned his colors slowly between the ages of 2 and a half and three. my middle child was one and a half and I dont even remember with oldest! They were all very different as to when they learned things!

One of my kids knew colors almost as soon as she could talk, another was almost four before she could keep them straight. My MIL used the Baby Einstien video on colors for the 'late bloomer' and she had them down very quickly after that.

My son is 22 mos and has known his colors for over a month (red, blue, green, brown, purple, orange, pink) ...still gets hung up on yellow.

Really, we always talk him through everything we do and when we're saying "vocab" as we're dealing with everyday objects, I always included the color. I'd say I started doing this around 18mos.

I would just very naturally work them into your observations of everyday things and then it's easy to come up with games like "I spy", "which one is different?" and making color collages. Children learn by discrimination, which means they learn what something IS by learning what it ISN'T. Translation: do lots of comparing/ contrasting of colors rather than focusing on one alone for a long time.

Kids remember that which they come into contact with and use the most. It sounds like she's doing great! Just move the colors to the forefront now and focus on them for awhile.

Before he could speak (he only had a few words until 2.5). I'd ask him to get the red shirt, or the blue towel, and he'd grab them from a bunch of different colored shirts or towels. The occasional correction, of course, was needed. "No, no... the BLUE towel, honey. This one."

((Most of our "stuff" was learned this way. Motherese style. The green peas, the yellow car, 1-2-3-4-5 steps!, etc.))

Have you had her tested for colorblindness? Remembering the names for shades of grey is REALLY hard.

My daughter is almost 21 months and she just got her colours about a month or so. She is a very quick learner and she had her numbers, alphabet, and shapes all down pat by the time she was 18 months but the colours were a bit tricky for her. I just focused more on those and she got them all pretty fast. I am so lucky though to be a SAHM and I have all the time in a day with her so I think that constant one on one time really helps and shows in a childs development
I wouldnt worry at all, she will get it in time
Good Luck

For my daughter it was somewhere between 2 and 2.5 that she knew most of them (the basic colors in the rainbow plus brown, black and white - but not sure how long it took her, she seemed to figure it all out at once). But every kid is different and from what I've heard it can take some of them a while to get their colors down. I am sure eventually she will figure it out. :)

EDITED TO ADD: One of our favorite books has been "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" by Bill Martin and Eric Carle. It's another great way to help with color recognition.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about it, and I wouldn't push it, either. I've had children in my facility who were four and five and still didn't know all their colors, then all of a sudden, something "clicked" and they had them all down in a day!

As others said, every child is different, so you can't really judge it by when our children learned them (my son was extremely young when he did, my daughter was a little older than my son when she did; but that tells you nothing about your little girl).

Just keep doing what you're doing, and trust that it will come. She sounds like a bright little girl.

BTW, my son's favorite book when he was 10 months old was by Dr. Suess - "My Many Colored Days", I believe is the name of it. And we read it every flippin' night for weeks! (groan) It lists the colors, but it's about emotions. "Some days are yellow. Some are blue. On different days, I'm different too." (Good grief, I can still recite the damn thing!)

My daughter was 2. We have a book for learning colors, and on one side it has the color buttons that when you push, it tells you the color, and it reads a bit like an activity book. I swear, it was that book that helped my daughter learn her colors, and quickly. We have a couple of other books, but it was that one she loved, and learned from. I'd give you the name, but it's in her room and she's sleeping :) but, I did get it at Babies-R-Us, and they still have it, it wasn't long ago that I saw it there.

My daughter was 1 (shes a genius), my son was 2.5 (hes a genius in other ways). They are all different, and learn in different ways. She sounds perfect. :)

Mine started talking at 2....she knew her colors before that. I could ask her for a specific color of something and she knew what it was right away. She's 2.5 and has had all the basic colors down for a while and is now adding strange colors in the mix (teal, etc). I don't remember how long it took her to get it down, because she didn't talk. It was more like her dad and I noticed she knows them and kept encouraging it.
Mine still doesn't know her ABC's though, lol.
Each kid is different. Hope this Helps. =)

My DD was just shy of 2, but her pediatrician has been consistently surprised that she knows them and she is now 3. I was told that DD's knowing colors at 3 was a little ahead, but it was not uncommon for 3s to not yet know colors very well.

Things that might help are play dough, paint, books and just generically talking in colors like you might anything else. "We have two blue shoes today. One. Two. Blue!"

My daughter knew them at 2. Several of her well-liked books were about colors and since we read them 4 billion times a day she learned them pretty early. We didn't push anything. All in its own time is our motto.

My daughter is the exact same age (3 in December) and we are also working on colors. My daughter likes the book Elmer the Elephant which is a fun story that repeats all the colors several times. I point to each color and now she is starting to know which is which (point to the right one). She will say some colors but not all.