Listening with Your Eyes

Lessons Learned

Toddlers love to have their ears "pulled off" in fun, but sometimes we wonder if our kids really did lose their ears--how else could their listening skills be so terrible?! But good listening uses more than just ears-it uses the eyes, and sometimes even the fingers and mouth.

Like other skills, listening can be developed and improved with practice. In fact, the skills used for active listening apply to a whole myriad of school subjects, which is why you'll find it on both The Iowa Tests® and the Stanford achievement tests for many of the elementary grade levels.

Here are some fun, simple, and creative ways to increase listening ability. The more senses used, the stronger the comprehension and retention. See how many you can use!

Eyes

"Let me see your eyes" really means you want the listener to look at your eyes. Watching the speaker's face while listening makes a huge difference. It literally "focuses" the brain on what is being said. Try these ideas:

I Spy
Lip Reading (Whispering doesn't count!)

Fingers

Physical motion always grabs attention. This is why so many children's songs include hand motions and why a toddler, fussing with her dress in the choir, will always steal the show. Try these activities for little hands:

Take notes. More than just a class chore, this can be a game! Have kids listen for rhyming words in a book and see who gets the most complete list (a great way to practice spelling too).
Learn some new songs that use fun hand motions.
Play "mirror" and try to perfectly follow the other person's gestures while facing each other.
Give directions for a scavenger hunt. The person directing/giving clues cannot say what item to look for; he can only describe and use gestures to say where it actually is. The first person to touch the correct object wins. (Similar to "hot and cold").
Draw what you have heard. One person describes the picture while the other tries to draw it without seeing the original. This one is great for groups of any age!

Mouth

Yes, listening can use the mouth, too! Repeating back what has been heard reinforces the understanding and lets the first speaker know if he needs to clarify something. Here are some games for "verbal listening":

Repeat After Me. The first person starts the story with a simple sentence. (John has a blue truck.) The next person must repeat the sentence and then add one of his own. (John has a blue truck. He drove it to Alabama.) The next person repeats both and then adds a third. Keep going until someone trips up.
Party Line. Put the players in a line. The first person writes something silly on a piece of paper, whispers it into the ear of the next person, and then hides the paper until the game is done. It gets whispered down the line. At the end of the line, the last person writes down what he/she heard and compares it to the original. The difference can be hilarious!

Body

These games use the whole body to practice "active" listening quite literally:

Simon Says
Obstacle Course. Blindfold someone and then guide him through the course with only verbal cues.

After exploring some of these activities, you won't have to hesitate to "pull off" your children's ears--they'll be very good at listening with everything else, too!