A Do-It-Yourself Guidebook of ActivitiesTo Improve Your Child’s

Cognitive Skills

Title(The Visual and Auditory Book)

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Table of Content

Introduction…………………………………….................. 3

Visual Closure ……………………………….................... 4-9

Visual Conceptualization ………………….................. 10-16

Visual Discrimination ………………………................. 17-22

Visual Judgement ……………………………................. 23-27

Visual and Auditory Attending ……………............... 28-32

Visual and Auditory Sequencing …………................ 33-37

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Introduction

Brief History of SOI

Guidelines for the use of activities üEncourage the childüDon’t let the child get bored/frustrated of doing

1 activityü Carry out the activities in an engaging manner

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Introduction

Hello there!

This series of guidebooks are brought to you by Thinker’s Box.

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Visual Closure

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Visual Closure

Visual Closure is the ability to understand and recognize pictorial information as a unit on its own

This skill is related to reading and has implications on comprehension

Improving this skill reduces incidents of stumbling, tripping, over-reaching or knocking over things and enables the child to see complete words when reading

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Complete the Picture

On a piece of A4 sized paper, draw or print out a few simple partial pictures

Have the child complete the partial pictures

Once the child is comfortable completing the simple partial pictures, draw pictures with more detailsR Z L U

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Peephole Pictures

Tear a page of pictures (could be from a magazine or newspapers)

Find a plain page of paper of the same size and cover the page with pictures

Cut a small hole on the top piece of paper, revealing only a portion of the whole picture

Have the child guess the picture

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Guess What?

Write a few partial numbers or alphabets on a piece of paper and have the child guess what each number or alphabet is

Increase the difficulty by writing partial words

For children who are more advanced, choose a short story and have the child copy the story (using a pencil) on a piece of paper

Have the child read the story once

Erase the top half part of each sentence

Have the child read the story again

(Partial letter)

(Partial Story)

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Word Shape

On a piece of paper, write down items that can be found in the house or from a vocabulary list suitable for the child’s level (use markers and write the words big enough)

Have the child use a different coloured pen or marker to outline the shape of the words

List of possible words: table, chair, television, shoes,

refrigerator, oven, mirror, cupboard, stools etc. Shape

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Visual Conceptualization(Classification)

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Visual Conceptualization (Classification)

Visual Conceptualization is the ability to grasp concepts and comprehend multiple information presented

This skill is related to scientific facts

Improving this skill would enable the child to be better able to classify things and gradually increase his/her processing speed

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On The Go Activity

This activity can be carried out with the child while walking or when in the car

Ask the child to spot things from different categories (things with wheels, things that gives out oxygen, things that produces noise etc.)

Encourage the child to spot things that are harder to find

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Experiencing the World (outdoor version)

Bring the child to a place that has multiple stimuli for the different senses (eg. Beach, zoo, market)

Tell the child to be observant of the things that he can see, hear, touch, smell and tasteEngage the child in fun activities!

Ask the child what he saw, heard, smelt, felt and tasted at the end of the trip

Encourage the child to describe more by asking questions

Questions could be along the line of:

ØWhat does it taste like?

ØWhat is another object that feels the same?

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Experiencing the world(indoor version)

Ask the child to close his eyes and imagine that he is at a certain place (eg. A mystery island, theme park)

Describe the setting to the child in vivid details using words such as “coarse sand”, “rustling leaves” and “groups of children”

Ask the child what else does he see, hear, touch, smell or taste

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How Do You Feel?

Find a picture book that has characters displaying emotions

Have the child identify the emotions and try to act it out

For younger children, this activity helps them to explore and recognize different facial expressions.

Developing this skill also increases their social awareness and improves social interactions.

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Visual Discrimination

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Visual Discrimination

Visual Discrimination is an evaluation skill in relation to pictorial information and tangible objects

This skill is related to reading (differentiating d and b, p and q)

Improving this skill would enable the child to read fluently, without omitting words in sentences

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What is this?

Prepare two shoe boxes

The first shoe box would be the Touch box. Place 10 random items (paper clip, crayon, eraser, socks…) into the touch box. Note: Do not place sharp items in any of the boxes

The second show box would be the Open box. Place the same 10 items found in the Touch box into the Open box, along with 10 other random items

Ask the child to choose 1 item from the Touch box and identify the object without looking at it Once the object is correctly identified, have the child choose from the Open box the same item

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Touch Box

Open Box

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Look through a picture book and ask the child to find specific things

Start with pictures that are the most obvious

Engaging the child in picture finding activities helps him to develop evaluation skills. As he looks for the specific picture, he would evaluate the other pictures to see if it is the same.

Picture Hunt!

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This activity can be played anywhere

Start the game by saying “I Spy with my little eye a stop sign”

The child is to respond by finding the stop sign

The child then continues the game by looking for something else to spy

Concept similar to Picture Hunt

I spy... vb

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On a piece of unwanted newspaper, have the child circle all the alphabet “A” that appears on a page

This activity can be made more challenging by introducing a time limit when the child gets more comfortable with searching for the alphabet

Newspaper search!

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Visual Judgement

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Visual Judgement

Visual Judgement is the ability to form new concepts and comprehend reading. It is also the ability to classify things

This skill is related to comprehension

Improving visual judgement would help the child be better able to conceptualize similarities and differences in meanings

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Classify Them!

Present the child with objects from two different category (fruit and stationery, electronic devices and laundry) and ask the child to classify these objects accordingly

Have the child give a heading to how it is being classified

Another way to carry out this activity would be to find pictures of items online, print it out, cut the pictures and present it to the child

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Ask the child to help sort out the coloured clothes and white clothes when doing the laundry

Other categories could be women’s wear and men’s wear, pants and shirts etc.

This activity not only helps the child learn classification of different clothes, it encourages the child to help out with household chores!

Laundry Time

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Gather picture cut outs from magazines or newspapers

Have the child classify these cut outs accordingly

Encourage the child to think of creative ways the items can be classified into

If the child is stuck, ask guiding questions such as:➡ Who do you think uses this item?➡ Where would you find it?➡ What does this run on?

How would you classify?

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Visual & Auditory Attending

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Visual & Auditory Attending

Visual & Auditory Attending is the ability to focus on information presented visually or aurally

These skills are related to spelling and recognition of new words

Improving these skills would enable the child to be better able learn with visual or auditory aids

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Remember the Story

Find a short paragraph of story or newspaper article (1-2 paragraphs)

Have the child read the story the once

Say a short list of words (some that appeared in the story and some that did not)

Ask the child to identify the words that appeared in the story

Note: Pick words that are specific to the story and not common words like “a”, “it”, “she”, etc. Common words are likely to appear in every passage and therefore even if child identifies the word, it may not be because they remembered it from the story.

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For beginners, take 9 poker cards and deal equally to 3 decks

Give the child 2 minutes to remember the cards in each deck

Once the child is able to remember the 3 sets with ease, increase the difficulty by increasing the number of cards in a set or the number of sets

Remembering Sets

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Instruct the child to use his/her eyes to track the object that you’re about to move in front of him/herStart with moving the object in the pattern of a windshield wiper (about 16 inch away from his/her face)for about 3 minutes After 3 minutes, move the object at the lower part of the child’s visual field for another 3 minutesEnd the activity by moving the object in the pattern of figure 8This activity strengthens the child’s ability to focus and it increases the child’s vision span ∞

Eye Tracking

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Visual & Auditory Sequencing

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Visual & Auditory Sequencing

Visual & Auditory Sequencing is the ability to retain and process information (presented visually and aurally)

This skill is applicable generally to all areas of education

Improving this skill would improve the child’s concentration and the ability to recall sequences

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Sequential Memory Game

Start the game by asking the child to look at what you are touching

The child is to continue the game by first touching what you touched, followed by another object that he chooses

When the child is unable to remember the sequence, provide hints (colour, direction, size etc.) that would help him

Note: Let the child know that if mummy/daddy forgets, they will also try to help by reminding or giving clues.

The auditory version of this activity can be played by naming the objects instead of touching the objects

Auditory version can be played on the go or in the car

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Prepare 26 cards, each written with a letter of the alphabet (2 sets, 1 for parent and 1 for child to use)

Parent pieces a string of random letters (2-6 letters, depending on the age group) for child to seeAfter a few seconds, letters are removed or flipped

Have the child form the sequence that was shown using his/her set of alphabet cards

The auditory version of this activity can be played by saying out a series of random letters for the child to repeatAuditory version can be played on the go or in the car

String the same!

ei

a,./

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Before going out, tell the child that you would be playing a game with him/her on signs

When outdoors, bring to his/her attention the signs that appear along the streets, on the walls or in trains and buses

At the end of the day, have the child draw out as many signs as he/she can remember

Group the signs that go together

Ask the child the meaning of each of the signs

Tell the sign

u p k f d s a z

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The End!Do check out the other installments of this

series for more activities!

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