I’m not really sure how my daughter started to learn color terms. How does one learn that the word is not a noun (the name of the object) and is the name of a color? I mean think about it as a parent you point to something and say “blue” or “red”. How does the child know that the parent is talking about color?

For about 4 months Katja has correctly identified and labeled blue objects. This is likely due to blue bear being such a prominent part of her life.

I think it was back in June and May that we started coloring with Crayons and writing with pens. This increases the exposure to color terms.

Somewhere along the line we started talking about the colors of the handholds on her climbing wall. I think her second color term about two months ago was “Black”.

“Black” quickly became overshadowed by “pink”. Katja has a special blanket which is pink. But there is her pink backpack, and shoes, and tonnes of other pink things.

Along the way “yellow” has been identified and pronounced in short sessions, like reading curious George. But as a color term has not been a stable self produced word. This may be in part to the challenge Katja has with pronouncing liquids.

This week “green” became a stable word and within a few hours red did too. Though there is a lot of phonological reduction going on right now.