Call to Action

Help Your Child Listen Actively

by Rae Pica

Language is either given or received. For communication to be effective, the individual on the receiving end must have the ability to listen well, which is a learned skill. Listening well is also essential for learning to speak and read skillfully. The following activities all promote listening well, or “active” listening. 

What Do You Hear?
This simple activity invites your child to identify sounds. Choose objects with familiar sounds (for example, keys on a keychain, a whistle, a bell, and so on). After your child closes her eyes, make a sound, and ask her to identify it.

A more difficult challenge is to use a tape recorder to record familiar sounds your child might hear around the house and to identify it on tape. Possibilities include a drawer closing, a vacuum cleaner, a phone ringing, a clock ticking, an electric can opener, or a doorbell. 

Where Is It Coming From?
Choose an object with which you can make a sound (for instance, a ball, tambourine, maraca, or rattle). Ask your child to close his eyes. Then tiptoe to one part of the room and make a sound with the object. Your child (eyes still closed!) turns and points to where the sound is coming from. Invite him to open his eyes to reorient himself and to determine whether or not he’s guessed correctly. Then have him close his eyes again as you tiptoe to a different area of the room and make the sound again. 

Who Said That?
Play this game when you have a group of children together (it will work best with children who know each other well enough to recognize one another’s voices). While the previous activity requires children to determine where a sound is coming from, this one asks them to determine where and who it is coming from.