A child’s listening skills act as the building block of communication, language, and intelligence. The inquisitive nature of your little one further increases the importance of listening skills. Kids are always attracted to new sounds, words and their meanings. But how can they gain knowledge without being good at listening?

Let’s take you briefly through different aspects of listening skills for kids. Read on to know about its foundation, role in the mental growth of your children, and types of listening skills.

Foundation of Listening

Following are the 3 separate processes or foundations of listening skills in kids.

Hearing

A child’s capacity to hear starts to develop right from the womb. A newborn can recognise the voice of the mother within few days of birth. Although the hearing is the prerequisite for developing listening skills, only hearing doesn’t mean that they are listening.

Listening

As kids grow, they learn to discriminate between different sounds, recognise familiar voices, and understand the meaning of words. This is the beginning of developing listening skills. It is vital for the development of their speaking and reading abilities as well.

Attention

Kids are constantly distracted when they are small. But with age, they learn to focus. This development of attention happens between 1 to 5 years of age roughly. The ability to focus and pay attention plays a significant role in enhancing listening skills in kids.

Importance of Listening Skills

Listening skills play a significant role in the growing age of your kids, i.e. years 1-5. It primarily helps in the following 7 ways

1. Enhances Memory & Concentration

   The memory kids create by listening is called auditory memory or echoic memory. It enables them to retain information for a longer time. And when they listen, they automatically try to focus on the sounds, enhancing their concentration power.
    

2. Helps in Memorising Vocabulary

   Many parents will testify that they understand and respond in a few days when you continue talking to young kids. One of the easiest ways to memorise vocabulary for kids is to keep listening to maximum words and sentences.
    

3. Improves Thought Process

   Listening help kids in getting clarity of thoughts. When they understand the meaning and context of the words, they recognise their own needs and can communicate clearly to parents. Therefore there is vast importance of listening skills in a child’s growing years.
    

4. Provides Confidence

   Listening skills also does the job of building confidence in children. When they listen cautiously, they know the meaning and context of what’s being said, and they can respond without error. This awareness of the surrounding world increases their confidence level.
    

5. Boosts Communication Skills

   Kids equipped with vocabulary, thought processes, and confidence, express themselves clearly. They also understand what others want from them. These kinds of communication skills are vital for kids to develop a bond with their parents.
    

6. Jumpstarts Mental Growth

   Kids can’t read at an early age. They also can’t make much sense of visual aid. Listening is relatively simple, and it helps them gain quick information. Being the single most powerful tool for gaining knowledge for small kids further increases the importance of listening skills.
    

7. Activates Experiential Learning

   Experiential thinking is the ability to combine audio with other information to make any sense. For instance, give a ball to your kids and tell them it’s a red ball. That’s how they will know and connect what a ball is and how a red colour looks.
    

Types of Listening Skills

Following are 5 main types of listening skills

1. Discriminative Listening

   As the name suggests, discriminative listening helps kids discriminate between rhyming sounds, different letters, words, etc., based on their meaning and context.
    

2. Aesthetic Listening

   Aesthetic listening develops the imagination of kids while providing them pleasure. Listening to stories, videos, music, plays, poems etc., are some of the examples of aesthetic listening.
    

3. Efferent Listening

   This type of listening is done to understand an oral presentation, videos, or a book read. Kids also use efferent listening to understand the instructions given by adults to them.
    

4. Critical Listening

   Critical listening skills for kids is vital for their intellectual growth. It’s about evaluating the information and drawing conclusions. Kids can use it for learning the moral of any story at the end of it.
    

5. Active Listening

   It is an essential type of listening skill for kids once they start pre-school. Teaching active listening skills involves making kids pay attention to the speaker, react & respond by speaking, smiling, or nodding to what is said. They also need to be trained to avoid interruptions and add their inputs in a conversation.
    

It is an essential type of listening skill for kids once they start pre-school. Teaching active listening skills involves making kids pay attention to the speaker, react & respond by speaking, smiling, or nodding to what is said. They also need to be trained to avoid interruptions and add their inputs in a conversation.

There is a great importance of listening skills in children’s growth in many ways. By developing listening skills, they can process the given information and respond in a much better way.

PlanetSpark offers top-notch curriculums based on 21st-century skills for kids on various subjects like public speaking, creative writing, active listening skills, etc. To know more, give a missed call at 08047193333 or book a free trial now!