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Teach Whole Body Listening to Improve Attention

Tags

Social-Emotional Learning Elementary School Strategy

Skills

Self-regulation Social Awareness Attention

Teach Whole Body Listening to Improve Attention

The phrase "listen up" may be too abstract for young children, so Whole Body Listening explicitly teaches children what to do to listen effectively.

How To Apply It!

  1. The underlying message in Whole Body Listening is that our whole body impacts our ability to listen.
  2. For young learners, it can be helpful to draw pictures of the following steps to reinforce their meanings.
  3. We use our ears to hear the speaker.
  4. We use our eyes to look at the speaker.
  5. We keep our mouth quiet.
  6. Our body faces the speaker.
  7. Our hands are quiet, resting at the side of the body or in the lap.
  8. Our feet are still.
  9. Our brain is thinking about what the speaker is saying.

Why It Works (the Science Of Learning)!

It is important that students are given a concrete process for becoming active listeners. The whole body listening idea arose as a social thinking strategy, focusing on how to listen during social communication, but is also very helpful in teaching students how to prepare themselves to listen when they need to pay attention to directions, focus in a class discussion or listen to a story. For older students, see the Give Me Five strategy.