Listening and Remembering

Speech and language therapy

﻿Hello everybody. My name's Emma. I'm really looking forward to today's session, and I hope you are too. But, before we get started, just a quick reminder. We, here at Oak, are trying to support any approaches you might already be using, and any work that you might have already been set. We know this lesson is going out to so many different children and families. So if you're not sure or have questions, then please contact your usual speech and language therapy team or your child's school. In today's session, I'll be talking about how we listen and remember things. I'll be sharing some listening and memory games, and then I'll also be giving you some ideas for kinds of listening and memory games that you could play at home. So, all you'll need for today's session is a few everyday objects and a blanket. If you've got the listening poster that you made in lesson nine, then get that out too. Adults, you'll need the downloadable resource that's available on the Oak website with this lesson. So, before we begin, find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for the lesson, turn off any distractions, and make sure that you and your talking partner or adult are seated comfortably. When you're ready, let's begin. Okay, let's start by doing some talking and thinking about how we listen and remember. Our ability to learn new information is affected by our ability to listen and remember. Listening and remembering is really important for learning. We take information in from all of our senses all the time. Our senses are what we can see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. I bet your body is taking in information right now, and you don't even realise it. When our body takes in information, it gets held in our minds for about 20 seconds. At this point, our brain breaks the information down into important parts. The bits that it knows we need. These important parts get saved, a bit like how you would save a document on the computer. Our brains have files of information. Our brain finds the file and links the new information into it. Saving the new information into the right file is how we learn things. There are lots of reasons why information that we hear can get lost or forgotten. If we don't understand the words or we're given too much information, it overloads our brains and we can't save what we've heard into the memory. Using what we know about good listening can really help us to process and save the information that we know we need for learning. Memory activities can also be really helpful. There are lots of fun activities and word games that we can play to help us to remember and recall information that we hear. Our brain is a bit like a muscle. So when we work it, it gets stronger. Let's play our first memory game. You need a selection of everyday objects or pictures of objects. Real life objects would be the best though. Start with three, but maybe work up to more. Put your objects on a table, take some time to look at them, and talk about them with your talking partner. Name the objects, and also use your senses to think about them. What do they look like, feel like, or smell like? Then, when you finish talking about all the objects, cover them with a blanket and see if you can remember everything that was on the table. You could make this game a little trickier by taking turns to remove one object while the other person isn't looking. And then they have to try and spot which one is missing. Have a go at this game for five or 10 minutes, and then come back to the video and press play to continue the lesson. There are lots of ways that we can work on listening and remembering at home. Having a strong memory for what we see is a really helpful strategy. It can help us to remember information that we've heard. We can work on strengthening our listening memory by spending five or 10 minutes also working on listening and looking. All of these kinds of activities will have a strong listening focus, but they'll also help with language, communication, and turn-taking. Wherever possible, we should try and have a good listening poster available too. This will help us to remember what our bodies need to be doing to do the best possible listening. Okay, now we're going to play a listening memory game. It's called, "I went to the Zoo and I saw". Take it in turns to say what animal you have seen on a pretend trip to the zoo. You have to remember the animals the other person has said too. A bit like this. I went to the zoo, and I saw a lion. The next person would say, I went to the zoo, and I saw a lion and an elephant. Have a go with your talking partner and see how many things you can remember. It might help to find a picture of the zoo to give yourself clues. It could also help to have pictures of each animal that you say you see, and then place them face down, so you can check back if you need to. When you finish with this game, come back to the lesson and press play, and we'll continue. Don't forget to continue to use the downloadable resource to help plan more listening and memory activities into your everyday. Adults, you can use the resources in this pack to record and reflect on how the child develops their listening skills and how their attention and memory improve over time. Well, that brings us to the end of today's lesson, but a really big well done on all the fantastic listening and remembering you've achieved today. If you're able to, take a picture of your listening time and your listening games at home and record these in the listening diary in the downloadable resources. You could ask your parent or carer to share this with your teacher at school, so that they can see the fantastic progress you're making with your listening and attention. And, if you'd like, you could also ask your parent or carer to share a picture of your.. You could also ask your parent or carer to share a picture of your record book with @OakNational on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. That way, I can see your amazing hard work too. All that's left for me to say, is thank you. But take care and enjoy the rest of your learning. Bye-bye.

Listening and Remembering

Listening and Remembering

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

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