Sunday 28 April 2013

Listen as you walk



Ever been listening to the radio for the weather forecast and missed it because you were washing up?

That's because we as adults, have learned to filter out background noise. Our children have sometimes learned to block out all of the sounds before they know which are the important ones.

Listen, don't just hear
To help our children to listen to the sounds around them and not just hear them, we need to let them know they are important and point out that they have meaning.

When you're walking down the road, or in the park, or just pottering at home getting all the jobs done (ha! Yea right!) you can listen to all the noises and point them out to your little one. Some are loud - Hoover, shower, lawnmower, tractor, aeroplane, lorry etc. some are quiet - birds cheeping, boiling kettle, tap dripping, clock ticking, bicycle, etc.

Have fun with listening

Remember Stop Look Listen?  My previous post was about pausing before speaking, and similar principles apply now: "oh," you gasp! "What was THAT noise? ... Listen... ..." Then, kneel down to be at the same level as your little one, and just point. 


By doing that and not constantly commenting on everything you can hear, helps littlies focus on those important noises and automatically makes it a game. 

Switch it off!

None of this will be easy if you have the telly or radio on, even quietly.  So sorry if you're addicted to the Radio in the morning, or Reality TV during the day, but you're going to have to turn it off. Not down, but off!

What to expect

Recently, I've suggested this type of activity to a few families whose children aren't speaking. After focusing on this pre-speech activity for 6-8 weeks, the children are now much more vocal in nursery, they are using a wider range of sounds at home, and are attaching meaning to those sounds (i.e. pointing and making a noise). The children are involving the adults much more, and have developed shared attention - they want to involve others in their world and activities. Once children are tuning in and have a level of shared attention, they may be ready to start to listen to sounds for speech...


What other listening games do you play?  Leave me a comment below to let me know!







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