Enrolling your child in school, knowing they have a disability or deficiency, can be worrisome. Teachers may be untrained in how to handle specific challenges that can impact your child’s ability to learn and progress. Color blindness sometimes goes unnoticed by educators. Here are a few tricks and tips for teaching students with color blindness that you should share with your child’s teachers.

Labels

One of the best preventative tips you can equip your child’s teacher with is to label everything. Putting labels on markers and other craft materials can make hands-on projects easier and much more inclusive.

Avoid Color Coding

Oftentimes, teachers will use color coding for behavior charts or to organize subject materials, like requiring students to have certain color folders for certain subjects. These tactics can easily be avoided to make classroom rules easier to follow for your child. Recommend that teachers use emoticons or shapes instead of colors for behavior charts or eliminate organization based on colors.

Avoid Color-Reliant Images

Graphs, charts, maps, and other learning tools can heavily rely on colors. Instead of using these tools, suggest that your child’s teacher use black-and-white images or color images that have numeric or shape-coded labels as well, since finding only black-and-white images can be difficult at times.

Whiteboard and Chalkboards

Advise your child’s teacher that chalkboards often have great success with color deficiencies, whereas they will have to be much more conscious of your child’s deficiency when choosing whiteboard marker colors.

Textbooks

To keep textbooks engaging to young students, color is heavily relied on. Ask your child’s teacher if photocopies can be made available so that colorful text is transferred into black-and-white copy, keeping your child on track with the rest of the class.

Since all types of color blindness allow people to see colors differently, be sure to educate your child’s teacher on what their specific type of colorblindness reflects. Be sure to educate your child’s teacher on what specific type of color blindness your child has. By outlining these tips for teaching students with color blindness, you can rest easy knowing your child’s classroom will be inclusive and dedicated to their learning.