Attention and Listening is the ability to listen and attend to sounds or activities and to focus on the sound or activity for long enough in order to learn from it.

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Attention: A child needs to be able to attend to relevant things in their environment in order to be able to learn. The ability to focus and to maintain concentration is essential in learning language. Gradually a child learns to shift their focus of attention from one activity or object to another and to listen at the same time.

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Listening: A child needs to be able to hear before they can speak. However, a child also needs to be able to ‘listen’ and this is very different from hearing. Listening involves being able to concentrate on the sounds a child hears around them, so as to be able to understand where the sounds came from.

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Every Friday in Nursery, we enjoy Bucket Time and Listening and Attention Time. The children are working hard to build their skills in focusing, sustaining their focus, shifting their attention and transition.

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You can support this at home by:

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• Quiet room. Switch off the TV and radio.
• Keep activities short. 5 minutes of good work is valuable.
• Get down to your child’s level and encourage them to look at you.
• Praise your child.
• Keep it fun!    

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