Reading Activities  /  Colour, Symbol, Image

Colour, Symbol, Image

Represent the text three ways - as a colour, as a symbol, as an image - and justify each one. Taking words away is what makes it hard: they cannot hide behind a retelling.

Three shots at the same idea. A child who cannot explain it in words often can in a symbol.
The why is the assessment. The drawing is a route to it, not the point.
Prints a blank sheet. Three boxes to draw in, and a line under each to explain why.

Model it on the whiteboard · printing the sheet is free to try

The sheet it prints

The printable colour, symbol, image sheet: three boxes to draw in, with a line under each to explain why.

What is Colour, Symbol, Image?

Colour, Symbol, Image asks a reader to represent a text three ways - as a colour, as a symbol and as an image - and to explain each choice. It is a thinking routine developed by Project Zero, a research centre at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This sheet is our own, inspired by that routine.

Why does taking words away make it harder?

Because a child cannot hide behind a retelling. Asked what a chapter was about, plenty will summarise the plot back at you and reveal nothing. Asked for a colour, they have to decide what the chapter felt like before they can answer at all - and then the justification exposes whether they had a reason.

What is the difference between a symbol and an image?

A symbol stands for an idea by agreement - a set of scales for justice, a crown for power. An image is a picture of something that happens or appears in the text. Children collapse the two constantly, and the moment you separate them is a genuinely useful five minutes of teaching.

How do you run it on the whiteboard?

Read the passage, then give a minute of silence before anyone speaks - this one dies if the first confident answer lands early. Take a colour from three different children and make each justify it. Then move on to symbol, then image. About twenty minutes for a chapter.

How do you make it harder or easier?

To ease it in, do the colour only, and offer four to choose between. Next, all three with a sentence of justification each. To stretch a class, ban the obvious - no red for anger, no black for death - which forces a second thought about what the text actually did.

From the classroom

The assessment is the why, not the drawing, and it is very easy to lose an entire lesson to colouring in. Give them a strict few minutes for the picture and the rest for the explanation, or you will get thirty beautiful symbols and no reasoning. The other thing: accept a colour you would not have chosen, as long as the reason holds. A child who says a chapter is yellow because it felt falsely cheerful has done something harder than the one who said grey because it was sad.

Try it now

Read one short passage and take colours only. Three children, three colours, three reasons - that is the whole routine in five minutes, and it shows you who is reading for feeling.

Other reading activities

Mood BoardCollect the colours and textures of a story. Theme TreeRoot a theme and branch out with evidence. Reaction QuotesPick a line that stayed with you and say why.

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Where this routine comes from: the Colour, Symbol, Image thinking routine was developed by Project Zero, a research center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Sage Teachers is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Harvard University or Project Zero. The prompts and the wording on this page are our own.

Written by a practising primary school teacher, and part of the free-to-try Reading Activities set on Sage Teachers. Last checked August 2026. The activity is free to try - every teacher gets 20 free goes - and opening an activity uses one token, printing included.