Fun Activities to Promote Listening Skills

 

Good listening is imperative to learning and academic success.

In this post, I’m sharing some fun activities to promote active listening skills.

Included, you’ll see pictures of a resource I created.

This packet is available by clicking HERE.

It includes the following:

• Give Me 5 Handout
  • Give Me 5 is a visual technique to help children demonstrate good active listening.
• Listen & Follow Directions
  • 3 different colorful lessons with various manipulatives.
• Listen & Do
  • 3 different easy to print & prepare lessons in black and white.

Give Me 5

Children who struggle to listen need more than simple requests or reminders to listen. They need to know what to do in order to listen.

According to Susanne Truesdale author of the article, Whole-Body Listening: Developing Active Auditory Skills:

“Emphasis is on the active nature of listening. Teach these active behaviors according to these tangible parts of the body in order to make listening a concrete, active, observable skill.”

For example, “When we hear a sound, we use our ears. When we try very hard to listen, we need to use more than our ears. We also listen with our brain, eyes, mouth, hands, feet, and even our seat (1990).”

I created this Give Me 5 Visual as a way for children to remember that active listening involves the whole body. This has greatly helped many of my clients as well as my daughter.

Listen and Follow the Directions

Once children are introduced to Give Me 5 or whole body listening techniques, have them practice using these techniques.

Listen and Follow the Directions includes three different lessons with differentiated instructions depending on the abilities of your child, student, or client. Each lesson includes Basic, One-Step Directions as well as Expanded, Two-Step Directions. These lessons require your child to carefully listen (Give Five!) and follow directions that involve placing the manipulatives in different locations on the proper scene.

Here is a picture of one of the three lessons included in the packet:

Listen and Do 

These activities are also a blast!

Similar to Listen and Follow the Directions, Listen and Do includes three different lessons with differentiated instructions depending on the abilities of your child, student, or client. Each lesson includes Basic, One-Step Directions as well as Expanded, Two-Step Directions. These interactive lessons require your child to carefully listen (Give Five!) to various instructions while completing the worksheets.

Here is a picture of one of the three lessons included in the packet:

Related Product:

In the Ocean: Receptive and Expressive Language Activities for Speech Therapy

If you try any of these activities or worksheets, please let me know!

For more listening tips, please see:

Listening Skills: How to Get Your Child’s Attention Before Speaking

Listening Skills: Give Me Five

For attention building tips, please see:

7 Close-Ended Activities to Build Attention in Preschoolers

Increasing Attention in Children with Autism 

Happy reading!

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