Nursery World - Home Learning: Activities

One of the skills that children need to develop in order to read
and write is called auditory discrimination.

This allows children tohear how a word breaks down into individual sounds - for example,
c-a-t.

As with many aspects of child development, this does not happen overnight and there are many steps on the way. One of the first is when babies learn to make only human sounds and eventually only the sounds that are needed for the language or languages that are being used with them.

There are a number of simple tried-and-tested ways that help children develop auditory discrimination. Here are some activities that you might like to try at home.

MIMIC SOUNDS

From six to 12 months

By six months, many babies are starting to mimic some sounds. For this activity, you have to hold your baby so that they are facing you. Make a sound or simple phrase such as 'Bye-bye' or 'dadada' and repeat it a couple of times. Then smile at your baby, but keep quiet. Keeping silent is important because babies need time to process what is happening before responding.

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