Advisory Panel > Marinet vanVuren

Listening Skills

2 Jun 09
 
Listening Skills

Why is it important to develop listening skills?

The ability to detect sound and attach meaning to it is the foundation block for the development of spoken language. A variety of experiences help children to extend this knowledge and learn to recognise sounds and understand speech.

When developing your child’s ability to detect sound, make sure that you ...

  1. Position your child so he/she faces you.

  1. Present a toy, or noise at the child’s eye level.
  2. To help gain your child’s attention, use her/his name often and make noise with the toy several times.
  3. Once you see a response, let him/her know you have noticed by saying something like: “You heard it”.
  4. Present noises, objects in different positions, at different levels and loudness.

Encourage auditory discrimination skills:

·      Introduce one noisemaker to your child, let your child hear the noise it makes. Put the toy on the table in front of your child.  

·      Introduce a second noisemaker, let your child hear the noise it makes. Put the toy on the table next to the first noisemaker.

·      Cover the noisemakers with a cloth.

·      Slip your hand in under the cloth and shake one of the noisemakers.

·      Remove the cloth and ask your child: “Which one made the noise?”  

For the older child:

  • Stepping stones

Use cushions to make stepping stones across the room. Choose a sound for your child to listen to, such as a drum beat or a whistle. Every time you make a sound, your child should jump to the next stepping stone.

  • Start/Stop
Play some music in the background. March around the room together, banging a drum or shaking a rattle. When the music stops, stop marching / making noise and stand quietly and wait for the music to start again.

  • Using your voice

Choose one of the sounds, such as ‘ahhh’. Choose a toy such as a car. Push the car along the table, using your voice to make the sound. When you stop the cat, stop making the sound.

Variations: draw a line on the paper, get your child to walk around the room when you use your voice.

Home Sounds for the Young Child:

Make sound by banging

  • Wooden spoon on upside-down tin
  • Your feet on the ground
  • 2 saucepan lids
  • plastic egg cups together

Make sounds by tapping

  • wooden sticks together
  • your fingers on a tray / table
  • pens / pencils together
  • stick on an empty plastic bottle

Make sounds by dropping

  • a ball into a bucket
  • marbles into a tin
  • buttons into a jar

Make sounds by shaking

  • rattle
  • bunch of keys
  • box of buttons
  • tin of rice / coffee

Make sounds by kicking

  • toy balls with bells inside
  • musical frame
  • tower of toy bricks
  • feet against blown-up balloon

Make sounds by scrunching

  • Stiff paper
  • Cellophane
  • Tin foil

Make sounds by squeezing

  • Squeaky toys
  • Horn

Make sounds by blowing                                                            

  • Into empty bottle                                                                          
  • A whistle / trumpet / mouth organ                                       

  • Kiss                                                                                       
  • Wind chimes                                                                    

Make sounds by using your voice

·         Hum

·         Sing

·         Laugh

·         Make sounds /m/,/p/,/b/

 

MORE ACTIVITIES FOR DEVELOPING LISTENING SKILLS

Use puppets and ask the children to follow simple and then more complex directions. Get your child to place objects in different locations, or to put things in/on/under named furniture pieces, or to get 2-3 objects from another room.

Have a treasure hunt. Hide small objects in the room and give directions for your child to find it.

Read short stories with bright and colourful pictures or pop up sections, these encourage children to attend and maintain their attention. Encourage your child’s participation in book reading, for example taking turns looking under flaps in books or using books with repetitive sentences and encouraging your child to recite them with you or after you.

 Give your child an object or toy (e.g. a dolly to represent Goldilocks).  Read the story to your child and when the object or toy is mentioned in the story he/she should hold up the object.

Sing familiar songs or read familiar stories and ask the children to complete sentences for you.

Have your child close his/her eyes while you produce sounds from various parts of the room. 

Your child must then point in the direction of the sound and then open his/her eyes to see if he/she was right.

Resource: Early Listening Skills by Diana Williams (1995)

© Marinet van Vuren, DSC 2009

 

 

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