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Try these activities to help develop and sharpen your child’s listening skills.
Read stories to your child. Ask him or her to predict what will happen next.
The prediction requires your child to listen to the details to make a logical
guess.
Cook with your child. Read the recipe to him or her, having your child listen
to and follow each step to complete the recipe correctly.
Have conversations about things your child is interested in. This gives your
child a chance to engage in a real conversation, practicing both speaking
and listening.
Play the telephone game. Get together with a group and have one person
whisper a sentence to the next person. Each person repeats it to the next
until the final person. Have this person say the sentence aloud and see how
much the two sentences have changed.
Create a list of questions with your child for him or her to ask you or a
sibling. After one person has answered, see how many the other can
remember. Switch roles and see how well the other person does.
Play the “spot the change” game. Read your child a short story. Then read
it again, making some changes. Each time your child hears a change have
him or her clap or raise his or her hand.
Get creative with “follow the directions.” Give short, simple instructions
and have your child draw according to the directions they hear.
It’s important to make room in the conversation for students’ questions or ideas
— and that means not simply answering them immediately. Parrish suggests
“pausing to let their questions reverberate in the air for a moment, not just
answering in that quick reflexive circuit between our head and mouth.”
This brief pause can help you assess not just the student’s words but the
emotions underlying their question. It’s important to “take in what’s under the
words, too, which may be the student’s worry or excitement,” Parrish said.
“Students’ voices are more than a question-and-answer session tacked onto the
end of presenting material,” Parrish said. “Their voices need to be integrated
throughout the lesson so that their insights and questions help to shape the
presentation.”
One innovative way to do this is through reflective writing, which helps learners
who prefer to process their thoughts silently before speaking aloud.
Classes have to keep moving to cover the material, and teachers may not always
be able to answer every question.
“We can get more skilled in moving fluidly between being present with the
student who is speaking and noting the time,” Parrish said. “The key to striking
the right balance between listening and speaking is practice.”
( https://www.oxfordlearning.com/improve-active-listening-skills/)