Primary Speaking and Listening – How well do you listen?

Over the years there’s been a lot of discussion over whether difficulties in following instructions are because of not listening carefully or because of not remembering. We did a little test on the children which turned into a regular practice session on listening skills.

Give the children a sheet of flags made out of different geometric shapes that they are confident in identifying. Ask them to make sure they have colouring pens or pencils in red, blue, green and yellow and to make sure they are ready to listen.

Then use the instructions sheet that comes with this activity for colouring in the flags; e.g. colour all the equilateral triangles red, colour all circles yellow etc. Tell them that you are not going to repeat the instructions and see what the results come out as. When we did it only one child got all the instructions correct. The activity challenges not only listening skills but processing and memory skills too.

Dave Lewis
Portsmouth High School Junior Dept

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