Color it out! is a revolutionary game that teaches the sounds of English language through play. It bridges the gap between the classroom and learning at home, and has proved to be wildly effective in building confidence for emerging readers, ESL students, international students, and anyone who loves to play with language.

We piloted the game with hand-picked school districts across the country. At Karen’s children’s Montessori school, the prototype was so popular that it was in tatters within a month. The teacher begged for a more durable deck. That’s exactly why we are raising funds: to print DUO on durable, industry-standard cards, give it proper packaging, and to bring it to market.

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

ELTS is a tight-knit team of educational linguists with decades of experience in language learning and literacy. Karen Taylor, co-founder of English Language Training Solutions (ELTS) is a former Fulbright specialist with a focus on second-language pronunciation. Karen created the Color Vowel® Chart in 1999 along with co-author Shirley Thompson (a Fulbrighter and returned Peace Corps volunteer) to help international graduate students deliver their lectures comprehensibly.

The Color Vowel® Chart is a visual organizer for spoken English that replaces phonetic symbols with colors. Early adoption by the U.S. Department of State has propelled our work to international acclaim.

In 2014, ESL teacher Laura McIndoo designed a game using the Color Vowel Chart as its underlying architecture. She piloted it with her own adult ESL students and was astounded by the response: Students insisted on buying their own sets to take home and play with their families.

With feedback from our pilot schools and an overwhelming demand for the game, we realized we’ve created something unprecedented: a fun, compelling language game that bridges schools and home learning for native and non-native speakers of English.

Want to play? Purchase Color it out! for your classroom.