listening skills

[nilbyname]

I have a very smart, switched on 5 year old boy, we are a mixed high volume small town first school. We have a 3 classes in Y1. He is in my top groups and the work he produces is very good. Mum and dad are lovely, engaged, keen for him to do well.

He is G&T for sports, drama, reading, he is polite and helpful, mostly a lovely boy.

However, he is struggling with listening, and needs to be requested to tune in, and kept on task for listening. He is smart enough to pick up on what we are doing, but sometimes he is not producing what he is capable of as he has not listened the 1st time to instructions.

What to do? He is certainly too smart to go on to my middle table, he doesn't need me or the TA to help him conceptually.

How can i help him listen?
What can i get the parents to do with him at home?

[PastSellByDate]

nilbyname:

Just a parent - but sometimes my kids get really focused on their work and kind of block out surrounding noise (at home especially) and this can mean they're accused on not paying attention at school when in fact they're just focused on what they're doing.

I think a good solution is consistency and signals. So for consistency - there's a place/ position you stand in which signals to everybody - right I'm going to be teaching now - let's pay attention.

I know that one teacher would just stand at the front and make 'the gesture' - kind of all out in cricket - moving one hand horizontally at chest height wiggling fingers - and all the kids knew that was the signal to come to attention. Seemed to work really well. He trained the class to this as a kind of game - doing it at the oddest moments - but if they came to attention immediately 5 times they got 5 extra minutes at break.

All of us parents remarked at how well he controlled that class - it could go from total uproar to so silent you could hear a pin drop in 5 seconds flat.

[Cloud2]

Is his hearing all right?

[nilbyname]

will flag up the hearing with parents, good point.

I like the waggly finger thing, I might try that!

It feels like he is not tuning in, selectively almost but not wilfully if that makes sense, he's a sweet boy!

[nonicknameseemsavailable]

could he be beyond what you are asking him to do so he is bored and therefore switching off. my sister used to do this apparently. she knew the work was too easy so didn't listen and couldn't really be bothered with it because she was thinking about quantum physics or something (ok not quantum physics but you probably know what i mean).

[nilbyname]

nonick- I am sort of leaning to what you are saying, something to ponder!

[nonicknameseemsavailable]

I think it is worth investigating. the thing is it is obviously clear he is very bright but just how bright is unknown so if he is functioning at the reasoning age of say 7 then he is going to be substantially ahead of the rest of the class but he could easily be functioning at the reasoning age of 10 or something and then you pitching things at yr2-3 level is still too simple.

Both my girls have found school very very easy, even the extension work is easy, they are both very clever and luckily do still apply themselves (well one is prone to being more lazy but she is quite competitive so would still make sure she did better than others but not as well as she COULD) but it is frustrating when I, and they, know they are capable of learning a huge amount more than they are being given the chance to but I feed this with a load of non fiction books at home which they love to read to themselves.

Do you do any sort of open ended work? topic work they can do at home? something he could take to his own level. not set him extra work because that isn't fair but if you could maybe give him something a bit different to try in class and see what he comes up with. Does he have a particular interest say in science, space, history or geography? Or do you have an online maths system he could play around on so you could see just how far he is capable of going? My eldest is good with comprehension but at the end of yr1 hadn't really done anything on it at all, she has loved doing proper comprehension exercises in yr2, shame she couldn't have done them in R or Yr1 when she was bored.