The present invention provides a sports toy with multiple instructional modalities which combine auditory, visual, and kinesthetic stimulation to teach and reinforce language skills. In one embodiment, a sports toy comprises a goal defining an aperture and a switch associated with the goal for indicating that a goal has been scored. A memory is operatively associated with the switch. A voice synthesizer is operatively associated with the memory and a speaker is in turn operatively associated with the voice synthesizer. Code stored in the memory causes sounds associated with language to sound from the speaker after the switch is activated. The sounds associated with the language include letter names, letter sounds, words, or phonics. The sports toy may also comprise an electronic visual display operatively associated with the memory for displaying stored images, such as letters or words, after the switch is activated.