Helping to develop your child’s listening and attention #1

The key idea is that good listening involves 3 key behaviours:

1. Sitting still
2. Looking at the person who is speaking
3. Thinking about what the other person has said.

Listening Practice:

Good listening. Praise your child for showing good listening skills (good sitting, good looking, and good thinking).

Environmental sounds. Practise listening for lots of different sounds in the environment (e.g. cars, lawn mower, birds) and talking about the sounds heard.

Matching musical instruments. Play sounds made by instruments or toys and listen for whether the sounds are the same or different.

Make it easier: Show your child the instruments as you make the sound and gradually work up to doing it without them being able to see the instrument.

Make it harder: Play a sequence of two then three sounds (e.g. bang, rattle, toot) and get your child to take turns to make the sounds in the same order.

Listening for… stories. Practise listening for words within a story (e.g. clap every time you hear the word ‘cow’).

Make it easier: Look at your child when they need to do their action e.g. clap.

Make it harder: Ask your child to listen out for more than one thing. Make the things that they have to listen out for more difficult, e.g. a male character, a place, a time, etc.