If you have concerns about your child’s reading and learning abilities, consider auditory memory as one skill that perhaps hasn’t developed well enough on its own.
Auditory memory is often overlooked as a necessary building block for academic success. Weakness in this area may translate to struggles with reading (phonics in particular), spelling, comprehension, rhythm, listening, attention and more.
The good news? As with many processing skills, auditory memory can be trained and strengthened.
Even if you consider yourself “just a parent” (you are never “just a parent” in my eyes, by the way), you can still make a significant impact on your child’s ability to learn.
How to Strengthen Children’s Auditory Memory
How can you help your child strengthen auditory memory skills? Let us count the ways!
- You’ll find plenty of games and apps out there that help strengthen children’s auditory memory skills. Visit your favorite educational games store online and simply search for the term “auditory memory.”
- I strongly encourage the use of audio books, either with or without the physical book in hand. Your local library, in person or online, may be a great source for audio books.
- Here at Inner Pieces Gallery you’ll find tips, tricks, and fun games that you and your child can play together. At home, in the car, waiting in line…
While all of the above options do provide fun ways for kids to practice, how do you know how effective those activities really are? Are they actually translating to stronger auditory memory skills? Are they helping to improve your child’s ability to listen, to comprehend, to read, spell, remember and learn?
In addition to the less structured activities, I invite you to try a more targeted and measurable approach: Building Auditory Memory Skills, THE BOOK.
Yes, you WILL want to carve out some focused, one-on-one time with your child in order to work through each skill-building activity in the book. Don’t worry if you happen to have plenty of other little ones running around who all need your attention too.
If you can’t imagine sitting down for 5-10 uninterrupted minutes per day with your struggling learner, then consider a tutor, a friendly neighbor, or another willing helper. You’ll be amazed at how much progress can be made with such a short commitment of time.
And, you do NOT require any special training to administer the activities in Building Auditory Memory Skills, THE BOOK. All that you or your helper will need are good listening skills, decent observational skills, and the ability to read the very thorough instructions included with each activity.
The Activities
Five separate auditory memory activity packs combine to create this single, easy to navigate pdf in book format. Suggested starting levels range from grades 1 and 2, though even struggling students in upper elementary and middle school may benefit from starting at the very beginning.
Along the way you’ll find plenty of ideas for increasing or decreasing the challenges to fit the needs of every child.
The progressive levels of this book are well suited for a variety of ages and skill levels, which makes Building Auditory Memory Skills, THE BOOK a perfect fit for multilevel homeschools and families.
No need to print the entire book, by the way. Just print the pages that your child will need in order to complete each activity.
I’ll briefly summarize each of the included activities. For further reading, click any of the links below.
Do you know how many letter sounds your child can remember at one time? Repeat After Me teaches you how to measure your child’s current skill level and how to help build those auditory memory skills to where they need to be.
Children practice three separate modalities: Repeat It, Write It, and Show It (discussed in further detail) until they reach their goal. A general guideline for age appropriate skill level is included, as is a progress tracking chart.
Repeat After Me helps strengthen auditory sequential memory and attention skills as well as auditory memory.
We might call Grid Art: Geometric Animals a very sophisticated form of dot to dot. Children listen to instructions, find coordinates, remember coordinates, and remember which dots must connect to each other. In the end they create a geometric style animal they can feel proud of, all while improving a very important learning skill.
Grid Art: Geometric Animals helps strengthen auditory sequential memory, attention skills, fine motor, working memory and spatial awareness as well as auditory memory.
Using the word lists and thorough instructions provided, you (or your helper, or your voice recorder in a listening station) read out loud the letter names of a mixed up word. Children use one of three separate modalities: Write It, Show It, or Repeat It (discussed in further detail) to first remember the letters, then unscramble the mixed up word to create a real word.
I Heard a Mixed Up Word helps strengthen attention skills, working memory and visualization skills as well as auditory memory.
First, students listen to and remember sequences of letters that you (or your helper, or your voice recorder in a listening station) read out loud. Then children eliminate all of the letters they hear in order to reveal the hidden message that remains.
This activity challenges students to remember sequences of multiple letters at a time, all while handling the distractions of random letters on a letter grid.
Hear the Hidden Message helps strengthen auditory sequential memory, attention skills, working memory, auditory discrimination and visual tracking skills as well as auditory memory.
First, students receive a short 1 or 2 page story with many of the words missing. Some stories rhyme, some do not. Each line of the story includes blank spaces where the missing words belong. Students listen to and remember 2, 3, or 4 words at a time, depending on their capabilities. They must remember the information long enough to write the words down in the correct spaces.
Which Word Goes Where helps strengthen auditory sequential memory, attention skills and working memory as well as auditory memory. You may also use this activity as a visual memory exercise instead.
Ready to give this printable, money saving e-book/bundle a try? Find Building Auditory Memory Skills, THE BOOK in my Teachers Pay Teachers store today.