How Does Color Affect Learning?

Children learn and retain information longer when color is used in educational material and in the classroom. Eighty percent of the brain receives information visually. Color stimulates the visual sense and encourages the retention of information.

The colors red, orange and yellow stimulate and increase brain activity. The colors green, blue and violet induce relaxation. Teachers can design classroom decor to to match either an active or relaxed style of learning. Classroom assignments and presentations can use color to enhance learning. Children that are overly stimulated could benefit from the relaxing colors. Children with attention disorders can benefit from brain stimulating colors.

A study conducted in 1999 by Vuontella, showed that children remembered color cues better than verbal cues. Combining lesson material with colors can help children to memorize information. For instance, flash cards with facts can be presented with colored back grounds. Each fact can have a different colored background. The students will associate the color with the fact, helping them to recall the information.

Color inspires creativity and encourages students in coming up with new ideas. The use of color not only assists students in artistic projects, color stimulates creativity thinking towards story writing and helps students to evaluate and solve questions.

The simple adjustment to classroom instruction of allowing students to use various colored pens and pencils to complete their schoolwork, has proved to motivate students to do their schoolwork. It also hold the student's attention span for longer periods of time, and helps to retain classroom information.

Parents can create a creative environment in the home to inspire creativity and learning. Starting at infancy, a colorful bedroom is beneficial to the learning of a baby. Babies that have colorful bedrooms, increase intelligence at a faster rate than babies who do not have colorful bedrooms. The use of colorful toys and decor for infants and children alike, creates a fun environment as well as a learning environment. Color can affect mood. Warm colors can induce a comfortable feeling and bright colors can induce the feeling of excitement.

The benefits of color on learning does not only pertain to infants and children. Color affects adults in the same ways that it affects children. Color should be used in college classrooms to assist in learning. Places of entertainment such as restaurants, often use color to entice a fun experience. The fast food chain McDonald's knew what they were doing when they designed their restaurant red and yellow. Two colors that excite and stimulate the brain.