Listening Activities for Kids: Strategies for Teaching Students to Follow Directions in the Classroom

In today’s technological revolution, children are bombarded with information from multiple directions every second of the day. Being habitually distracted is an epidemic.

So, how can teachers intervene and start teaching students to follow directions better through all the digital noise?  

We’ve put together a list of strategies and tips, including listening activities for kids. So, before we get too distracted ourselves, let’s dive right in!

1.Teaching Students to Follow Directions by Improving Their Attention Span

A child obviously can’t follow directions if they’re not paying attention to the instructions in the first place.

So, the first focus of teachers in teaching students to follow directions is to be strategic about lesson plans and physical organization in order to optimize students’ attention.

How?

Shorten lesson blocks into 10 – 30 minute segments of focused learning.

In a 2016 study called “Off-task behavior in elementary school children”, teachers learned that the ability of students to pay attention and follow directions dropped off significantly after 10 minutes.

10 minutes?!

How is a teacher supposed to accomplish any learning in 10 minutes at a time? Won’t switching from task to task every 10 minutes actually go against the teacher’s aim to increase a student’s attention span?

Not exactly.

If you rotate through a variety of multi-sensory mini-lessons or learning stations within a shorter lesson block, you can work toward short, focused learning blocks with breaks in between.

You can also use games like hopscotch to incorporate movement into number activities. Listening activities for kids like this are so much more fun and engaging.

Teacher, Emily, says:

“My preferred style of learning for children under the age of seven is learning through experience. We have learning stations with specific goals set up around the classroom.

Children have to complete each goal with minor assistance from the teachers. The goals are themed depending on what is being taught that week, and they address different areas of instruction.

For example, when learning to write the letter A, instead of just diving in and tracing the letter, you might have a station where children have to use only their index finger to trace the letter in a box of flour or sand.

This addresses sensory needs while also working on fine motor and literature skills.”

Teacher, Denise, is another champion for learning stations:

“Using stations really helps with their short attention spans because they get to move to the station and complete the work with their group members, and it’s usually not for more than 15 minutes.”

2. Using Movement Breaks as Listening Activities for Kids

Five minutes of movement between lessons can make a huge impact in your student’s attention and ability to follow instruction.

There has been much research that shows how movement breaks between learning blocks makes for more efficient learning.

Movement breaks also allow students a chance to regulate or interrupt any anxiety, stress, or issues with sensory overwhelm. Quite often, children with ADHD, ADD, Sensory Processing Disorder, or other learning disorders have a hard time following instructions from teachers and parents. 

This is due to the way their brain is hardwired to focus (or not focus, in this case). But having regular breaks throughout the school day can make a significant difference in a student’s ability to “reset” any emotional distress or physical tension that is blocking their ability to focus on instructions.

Many students with concentration issues are left overwhelmed and over-excited after participating in some very active, loud and unpredictable activities. These students need regulation and predictability.

What kind of anxiety can a 5-year-old really have?

We talk about common struggles of starting school here: What to do When Your Child is Struggling at School

Physical Activity

Physical activity also increases oxygen to the brain, which is critical for attention and learning.

Did you know that there are certain proven physical exercises to improve concentration for school children?

Research in occupational therapy and other disciplines has led to several programs of this kind that show teachers specific sets of exercises to improve concentration in the classroom. These programs are perfect for movement breaks.

3. Playing Listening Activities with Kids – Games That Build Better Listening Habits

Our favourite way of teaching and building habits is through games! Here are some fun games you can play that will help your students build their ability to follow directions.

First, there are the fun, traditional listening games like:

Freeze Dancing

Freeze Dancing is where students dance and play while music is playing. When the music is stopped periodically by the teacher, students must freeze in place. Anyone still moving and not paying attention to the music is “out.”

Simon Says

Simon Says, is a game in which a leader calls out movements for the rest of the group to perform. Movements such as “Stand on one leg” or “Hop up and down” are examples.

However, followers must ONLY follow the instructions that start with “Simon says….” For example, “Simon says hop on one foot” and the students hop on one foot. “Stand on one leg” and the students are to do nothing.

The key is to pay attention to that key phrase. If a follower performs a movement without the leader starting with “Simon says…” they are “out”.

Musical Chairs

Musical Chairs is a game in which there is a circle of chairs. However, there is one fewer chair than there are participants in the game. When the music plays, everyone moves in a circle around the chairs.

When the music stops, everyone tries to sit down. Inevitably, one person will be left without a chair if he/she isn’t paying attention to the music stops closely!

Other Listening Activities for Kids

In addition to these traditional types of listening games, we also like the idea of incorporating a secret word each day (or each week). A teacher selects a unique word or phrase and announces it as the secret word.

Throughout the day, if the teacher uses the word or phrase at any time, any students who raise their hand to indicate they noticed earns a special prize. This game teaches students to pay attention throughout the day to the words their teacher is using!

Teaching Kids to Follow Directions: 5 Proven Strategies for Teachers

In quick summary, here were the five strategies for increasing primary school students’ attention span and improving their classroom behaviour. We hope this list will be useful for teachers!

The information was gleaned from polls and conversations with experienced teachers as well as published scientific research.

1. Break lesson blocks into short 10 – 30 minute mini-lessons or activities based on the average attention span for the age of your students.

2. Rotate through different multi-sensory learning experiences.

3. Incorporate regular 5-minute movement breaks throughout the day.

4. Play listening activities for kids to learn to follow instructions better.  For example, Freeze Dancing, Musical Chairs, Simon Says and Secret Word.

Let us know if you have any other tips for fellow teachers to teach kids to follow instructions!

Thank you to the kind collaboration from the teachers who offered their feedback for this article!

References:

American National Center for Education Statistics ( https://nces.ed.gov/ )

“Off-task behavior in elementary school children” Karrie E Godwin, Ma V. Almeda, Howard Seltman, Shimin Kai, Mandi D Skerbetz, Ryan S Baker, Anna V Fisher. ELSEVIER, August 2016.

“Using Positive Student Engagement to Increase Student Achievement” The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement, April 2007.