Help your child prepare for SATs

Speaking and Listening

Language plays an integral role in your child's learning and communication skills. It is vital in building up their confidence across the curriculum and supporting their social relationships.

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Speaking and listening enables children to problem solve, exchange ideas, participate in decision making, and reflect on issues which matter to them. Through these interactions, a child's creativity and understanding are engaged and developed.

Speaking and listening is a fundamental aspect of your child's literacy SATs learning, so we have some tips on how you can develop your child's communication skills and get ahead at home...

 

Key Stage 1 

At this stage in your child's life cultivating good listening skills is very important. As younger children find it difficult to concentrate for sustained amounts of time your speech needs to be succinct, informative and fun.

Try reading your child a story which is perhaps more challenging than one they would read to you. Ask them to listen carefully to the details of the story. Once you have finished, ask them to retell you the story in their own words. You could then ask them to become a character from the story and conduct an interview with them asking questions which your child must answer as that character. This will really help consolidate their listening and speaking skills, whilst being a fun activity they will enjoy.

Key stage 2 

Debates are an excellent way of ensuring that children are not only finding their voice through sharing opinions and facts, but also find their ears too by patiently listening and respecting the views of others. Find a topic your child has expressed an opinion about and get them debating at home. It is a great way of getting the whole family involved, and will certainly improve your child's confidence in their communication skills. You never know, you might find you have a budding politician sitting at your dinner table!

 

Key Stage 3 

By this stage in your child's education, their speaking and listening skills will have really developed, so it is a good time to get them involved in a more challenging exchange. Ask them to find an item in the house that they must try and sell to you. As a buyer, you will be asking them lots of questions and they must focus their pitch on convincing you that their product is the best. If you have other children you could ask them to be rival salespersons. This will certainly be a fun and lively activity which could even incorporate ICT if they wanted to do a Powerpoint presentation to support their pitch.

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