Listening Skills For Children

It is very important for a child to learn how to listen. If you feel that your child listens to what only he wants, then your child might have selective listening skills which is not a good sign. There are many activities and games which you can use to teach your child how to listen.

If you are confused as to how to go about the whole process, all you need is some expert advice on how to teach listening skills to children. Follow the steps mentioned below.

Read to your child and have them tell you what they understood. This activity will help develop their listening skills as without listening they won't be able to tell you what they understood.

Maintain eye-contact with them. This is more of a skill rather than an activity as children very easily get distracted and do not pay attention. By maintaining constant eye-contact you can make sure that they are listening to whatever you are reading or saying.

Whenever you say something to your child, ask them to repeat what you just said. In this way, they will try and listen to you. They need not repeat what you say word by word; just remembering the main message will do just fine.

You can create a game that will help your child to listen carefully. If there are several children, then ask a question, and let one of the children answer it. This will make all the other kids listen to the one who is speaking. Also, try and give some kind of an award to the child who answers the question. In this way, the children are bound to listen carefully.

Spend as much time with your child as you can. Spending time not only makes you bond strongly with the kid, but it will also increase their learning capability as well, since you will interact with the child more.

Do not interrupt when the child speaks. Let them finish what they want to say. Remember to give them plenty of time to say what they want to.

Apart from the above mentioned activities, the following can also help children to become better listeners:

Listening to songs, stories, riddles and rhymes.
Identifying sounds which are made by various animals and objects that are found around the home and outdoors.
Repeating sentences after you.
Playing musical instruments while listening to music.

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