Do you explicitly teach listening skills to your students? Did you know that 70-80% of our waking hours are spent in some form of communication? Of that, listening makes up about 45% of our daily communication!
When I learned these statistics, I knew that I needed to be as intentional about teaching/practicing listening skills as I was about teaching reading, writing and math. I was never provided any kind of listening skills curriculum, so I knew if I was going to have a systematic approach to teaching listening skills, I had to create something…
Listen and Color is by far my students’ favorite way to practice listening skills. It’s a fun and interactive activity that gives elementary students a chance to practice listening for, and following, single-step and multi-step directions. With weekly practice, students become listeners, and overall improve their listening comprehension skills. The best part is, students LOVE this activity and always ask for more! #teacherwin!
Here’s how Listen and Color works…
Each student gets a blank Listen and Color page and has a set of crayons or colored pencils ready to go.
The teacher reads aloud a direction from either the Single-Step or Multi-Step direction column.
Students listen and then color in their page according to the direction given. This continues until all ten directions have been given.
After students finish, the teacher displays the Color Answer Key and students can self-check their listening success. Or, if teachers want to use this as an assessment, they can collect it, grade it out of 10 and record the students’ listening score for the week on a data tracking sheet (this data can be very helpful at parent conference time, too!).
Listen and Color really challenges students to listen the first time! When I introduce Listen and Color in September, I read each direction twice. However, by October/November, I only read the direction ONCE! This really motivates students to have those “first-time listening ears” ready.
This activity can be differentiated within your own classroom, too. If you use Listen and Color in a small group, you can mix and match single and multi-step directions, depending on your students’ needs.
I would love for you to try out Listen and Color in your own classroom! HERE IS A FREEBIE and I can’t wait to hear what you and your students think!
If you are ready to jump in and be intentional about weekly listening skills practice, you can check out the entire LISTEN & COLOR BUNDLE HERE.
Thank you for the informative article! I have never considered the importance of purposefully teaching students listening skills. I think that you have some great ideas and I believe that teaching students using this type of game will definitely increase students’ desire to listen, especially the first time. You stated that you start this exercise in September and by October/November the students are listening to directions the first time you state them. Have you found that these skills are something that you must continue to work on throughout the year or is it something that the students usually pick up and retain pretty quickly?
Hi, Samantha,
I’m so glad you found this blog post helpful! Listening skills are definitely something we have to work on all year long, but I do see huge strides with students’ ability to follow directions the first time with continual practice through Listen and Color! I hope that helps to answer your question! Erin 🙂