Listening is a major building block for cognitive development. It’s how babies learn language at a young age. It’s how we make connections to past experiences and learn to empathize with others. And it’s how relationships are built between kids and adults. No matter your age or what you’re doing, strong listening skills will help you succeed in school, career, and social relationships. In order to boost our students’ reading comprehension and develop larger vocabularies, listening skills must be at the forefront of our reading programs.
The Impact of Listening on Reading Skills
Although there are multiple components to learning to read, you can essentially break down reading into two basic concepts: decoding and comprehension. Studies have shown that if you have a student who struggles with decoding, reading aloud to the child can greatly improve their phonemic awareness and fluency. The child will understand the text better if they listen to it read aloud to them, rather than reading the passage themselves and stumbling over sounds and words.
Reading aloud to ELL students can also improve their listening and reading skills! When ELL students can listen to a text read aloud, they can gain more exposure to complex vocabulary words while also learning the rhythm of the English language. This in turn can improve their reading skills and help them become more fluent English speakers. All in all, listening to read alouds can help every student develop better fluency and comprehension skills because they can focus all of their attention on what they’re hearing, as opposed to what they have to decode themselves!
Creating a Listening and Reading Connection in the Classroom
So how can you create more opportunities in your classroom to develop listening skills? You have tons of options! 🙂 As the teacher, you can read aloud both picture and chapter books. Picture books can be a fun way to introduce new lessons and topics, as well as great stories for short discussions and social/emotional lessons. Chapter books are a great way to establish a consistent read aloud time each day. This time could be right after lunch, recess, or even a transition between classes. Chapter books are helpful for holding peer-to-peer discussions, book reports, and character analyses as well.
Another way to have your students practice listening skills is by creating listening centers. One option to try out at your listening center is to have your students read aloud to one another. Have each student take turns reading the story – they LOVE hearing the same ones over and over again! In fact, the more times they listen to the story, the greater chance that they will learn more complex vocabulary words. After each partner has taken a turn reading, they can try acting out the story together!
Audiobooks are one of my favorite activities to incorporate into learning centers. You can play interesting music, intriguing sound effects, and many times there are different voices given to portray different characters throughout short stories.
Narrators, specifically ones that are listened to through audio, typically embellish their storytelling with silly voices and dramatic emphasis which makes listening to audiobooks more entertaining. It’s also a great tool for comprehension. When students can listen to different voices and their tones, it helps them paint a better picture of what’s happening in the story and build connections and learn to empathize with characters. Exposing your students to different narrators and the different ways they read will help them as they learn how to read, as well as with their own storytelling skills.
Other Listening Activities
There are several other ways to develop good listeners in your classroom aside from just using read alouds! Think, Pair, Share activities are a great way for students to discuss different topics with one another. Give your students a topic (it could be as simple as what their favorite meal is and why it’s their favorite), pair students up, and then have each child take their turn being the speaker and the listener. You can then give them certain tasks to do after their conversation – repeat their reason for why they chose the meal that they did, or ask them a question pertaining to the information they shared.
Body language is another key piece to developing good listening skills. Model to your students what active listening looks like – your whole body facing the speaker, making eye contact, feet on the floor, and hands on your lap. Not only does this kind of body language signal to the brain that what’s being said is important, but it also shows great respect to the speaker.
If you’re needing a quick game that students can complete with one another that doesn’t require any prep AND practices listening skills, try 20 Questions! Give each pair of students a topic – Vegetables, cereal, sports, etc.. By narrowing down the topic, it will allow the students to ask more specific questions. Each student has 20 questions to ask their partner to try and guess what the object is that they chose. Both students can take turns asking and choosing an object!
How to Get Access to Reading Materials
There are several ways you can get your hands on reading materials, even if you don’t physically own them yourself! Of course you can buy audiobooks, sets of short series, and tons of picture and chapter books through Scholastic, Amazon, and numerous bookstores. You can also utilize the school library, as well as your public library as much as possible. Many libraries are utilizing Hoopla now, which is a mobile library for streaming all kinds of audiobooks, e-books, music, and even movies. You can also use your school requisition funds to build your classroom library!
I have compiled a list of online audio tracks that are all free resources you’re welcome to try out! I hope your students enjoy all of the stories, activities, and music as they develop their listening skills and become better and better readers. 🙂 You can find my list of online resources here!
