Teaching Your Child Numbers, Colors and Letters

Letters are the initial tools your child will use in order to construct and express her own ideas and gain access to the ideas of others. She, of course, must learn letters and their function before she can learn to read. According to her stage of development and her ability, expose your child to letters in any way you can. Teach her to sing the alphabet song; write letters on a lap-sized chalk board and tell her their names; let her try to form the letters. Learning the letters of the alphabet and their sounds can be one of the most fun and natural things to teach your child, if you tackle it creatively and spread it over a long period of time. Your child will not learn the alphabet in one day, one week, or one month. Be content to acquaint her with one or two letters at a time, adding letters only as your child is able to identify them correctly 80% of the time.

Likewise, numbers are the units that will allow your child access to the world of mathematics. They will allow him to count, calculate, tally, analyze, estimate, evaluate and measure. Count things while your child is watching and listening. Count the plates you put into the cupboard, the tiles on the floor, the number of birds you see fly by your window. Your child will learn to say the numbers in sequence before he understands that the number names stand for a certain quantity of things. Let your child absorb the concept of numbers and how to use them slowly over the course of weeks and months and years. Your patience in teaching mathematic concepts will be far more effective than trying to force your child to understand concepts that seem simple to you but are really quite advanced for a young mind. Speak positively about math, and show your child how you use it in your everyday life.

Understanding colors is important on many levels. The simple exercise of looking at two things and distinguishing them by color is an extremely mind-building activity. Mastering the identification of colors gives your child a whole new avenue of describing and classifying things. Knowing that colors occur in fairly predicable patterns—that grass is green and the sky is blue and clouds are white—gives your child a sense of consistency and stability in the world around him. Since your child’s world is filled with color, there are myriad opportunities to talk about colors and identify them.

Games are an excellent way to teach your child letters, numbers and colors. During an engaging game, your child learns without awareness of effort since her concentration is on the game. Using your own imagination, make up games that focus on teaching colors, numbers and letters to your child.