Cedarwood Primary School

Learning To Listen and Speak Well

Becoming a good listener and speaker is an essential life skill. For some children, including young children and children with additional needs, speaking and listening skills may take a little longer to master. Below is some information about effective speaking and listening and some suggestions for helping your child to develop these skills.

Mastering Listening 

Really good listening requires effort. It uses not just your ears, but your whole body. Below are some posters that can help children to become 'full body listeners'.

Children need to 'tune in' to listening and the more they practise having to listen carefully, the better they will become. Playing games that require careful listening will develop this skill. There are links to a range of listening games and activities below.

Developing Speech

Speech acquisition and development is ongoing throughout life. Children develop at different paces and the best way to support your child with this is to spend time speaking with them and listening to them. Below are some tips for supporting your child's speech development:

• Pay attention when your child talks to you
• Get your child's attention before you talk
• Praise your child when they try new words
• If your child incorrectly pronounce words, don’t draw attention to this but simply repeat the word back correctly in your own speech
• Pause after speaking. This gives your child a chance to respond
• Keep helping your child learn new words. Say a new word, and tell your child what it means, use ambitious vocabulary that is understood because of the sentence and context it is spoken within
• Talk about where things are, using words like "first," "middle," and "last" or "right" and "left." Talk about opposites like "up" and "down" or "on" and "off"
• Have your child guess what you describe. Say, "We use it to sweep the floor," and have them say or find the broom. Say, "It is cold, sweet, and good for dessert. I like strawberry" so they can guess "ice cream." 
• Help your child follow two- and three-step directions. Use words like, "Go to your room, and bring me your book."
• Ask your child to give directions. Follow their directions, for example when they tell you how to build a Lego tower
• Share books and watch films together. Talk about what your child is watching. Have them guess what might happen next. Talk about the characters and their feelings. Can they retell the main events of the text?  

There are links to speaking games and activities below that you may like to play with your child.