Ready to listen and learn!
Making quiet time for you and your child to play a game with no distractions can really help build their attention span and listening skills.
Each child’s attention and listening skills are different, so follow your child’s needs and interests. Choosing an activity with your child based on what they are interested in will help them stay engaged and feel empowered by making a choice!
Top tips:
- Share a book: allow your child to choose the book they want to share, talk about the pictures, what is going to happen next and see if they can turn the pages – you don’t have to finish a book or start at the beginning, sometimes your child will just want to turn through the pages backwards and forwards and look at the pictures
- Go on a ‘sound walk’: When you are out and about or in your garden, you can tell your child that together you are going to use your ears (and gesture pointing to your ears) to find out what you can hear – once you hear a sound, you may be able to point at it to acknowledge it, for example the bird singing, the aeroplane in the sky or the dog barking – this will help your child make connections and also enhance their listening skills
- Play with a jigsaw puzzle: you can choose a jigsaw that is appropriate for your child’s age, attention span and interest – it can be a lovely activity to problem solve and share together
- Play ‘Simon Says’: share an instruction with your child and use the gesture/action so they are making the connection with the instruction and the actions – instructions can be simple such as ‘touch your head’, or you can build up to two part instructions such as ‘run to the swing and then do a star jump’ (making it physical makes it more active and exciting!)
- Play ‘Kim’s Game’: choose a small selection of familiar items from around the house, lay them on the floor and look at them together naming the items. Cover the items with a blanket or towel, secretly remove an item without your child looking, lift the blanket off the items and allow your child to try and guess which one is missing – this is great memory game for helping with your child’s concentration and attention
- It is important to remember: it takes time and patience to develop attention and listening skills, so even if your child is only able to play for a couple of minutes this is still a positive experience – praise them and then let them choose something else
