Visual perception is an important skill that must be developed during the first years of a child’s life.
Here’s what it means, why it is so important for learning, and 12 simple activities to build it.
What is Visual Perception?
Visual perception is the brain’s ability to interpret what the eyes see, forming part of a child’s perceptual-motor skills.
It works alongside other sensory perceptions—auditory (sound), olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste), and tactile (touch)—as well as motor skills like body awareness, coordination, and spatial awareness.
What is an Example of Visual Perception?
An example of visual perception is when a child reads a word.
Let’s say the word is dog.
The brain deciphers the shapes as letters, distinguishes similar ones (like ‘b’ and ‘d’), and recognizes the word’s meaning. It’s about interpreting what is seen, not just seeing it.
Why is it Important?
Visual perception is crucial for children to understand their environment and develop school readiness. Well-developed visual skills are essential for learning to read, write, and do maths.
Activities like memory games and puzzles are key for building these essential skills, and laying the foundation for formal learning.
What are the Types of Visual Perceptual Skills?
These are the types of visual perception skills, as laid out by Marike de Witt, author of “The Young Child in Context: A psycho-social perspective“, and their importance for learning:
- Visual Discrimination: Recognizing similarities and differences (e.g., b vs. d, S vs. 5).
- Visual Memory: Remembering what the eyes have seen, like letters, numbers, and sight words.
- Sequential Memory: Remembering visual sequences, crucial for spelling and copying numbers accurately.
- Visual Comprehension: Understanding and interpreting what is seen to solve problems.
- Perception of Shapes: Distinguishing shapes regardless of size or position.
- Depth Perception: Judging distances, vital for movement.
- Figure-Ground Perception: Focusing on specific details while ignoring background, helpful for reading and copying.
- Visual Analysis and Synthesis: Breaking down and reconstructing visual patterns, important for reading.
- Visual Closure: Recognizing whole shapes from partial views, aiding in reading fluency, especially of sight words.
As you can see, so much more than just learning letters and numbers goes into learning to read, write and do maths.
Concentrating on developing your child’s visual perception will go a long way to school readiness and building early writing and pre-reading skills.
12 Visual Perception Activities and Games
Developing visual perceptual skills is best done through play.
Activities like building puzzles, playing memory games, drawing, sorting, making patterns, and engaging in fine and gross motor activities all help enhance these skills. No need for formal worksheets—just lots of fun, hands-on play.
Here are 12 activities that target various skills like visual memory and discrimination:
1. Matching Card Game
Matching card games have pairs of matching pictures.
Lay one set out in front of your child. Keep the other set. Show one card at a time and ask your child to find the matching picture.
Variation: Place both sets of cards face up and shuffled and put on a timer to see how long it takes your child to match all the pairs.
2. Memory Game
Play a memory game with the cards used in the game above.
Lay all the cards face down and shuffled. Take turns turning any two cards over on the table.
If you turn over a matching pair you keep the cards and if the pair doesn’t match, turn the cards back over until it is your turn to try again.
This is an excellent game for developing visual memory because your child needs to remember where the pictures are as they are turned over, in order to find the matching pairs.
The winner is the person with the most matching pairs at the end.
Get your own set of printable memory card games here!
3. I Spy
Play the classic game I Spy by pointing out things by their visual aspects.
Example:
I spy something that is round, flat and rough.
4. Build Puzzles
Building jigsaw puzzles is one of the best activities your child can do. Have puzzles available at home and make them part of regular playtime.
Ensure the puzzles are age-appropriate – the younger the child the bigger and fewer the pieces should be. They should be slightly challenging but doable. If they are too difficult children lose interest and feel incompetent.
The best quality educational puzzles are made of wood and have a wooden supporting board.
5. Sort Dry Pasta
Give your child an ice-cream tub of mixed dry pasta and ask them to sort the pasta by shapes (e.g. tubes, spirals etc), or even by colour if you can find colourful pasta.
You can still wash them and cook them afterwards!
6. Sort Buttons
Take a tub of buttons with different shapes and colours and provide containers to sort into, such as yoghurt cups or an egg tray.
Ask your child to sort them by specific criteria and then change the criteria.
The buttons can be sorted by:
- colour
- size
- shape (if they are not all round)
- number of holes in the middle (more advanced)
- Fabric vs. plastic buttons
Here are more button activities for preschoolers.
7. Sort Shapes
Use play shapes or coloured counters and sort them as in the game above. Again, provide different criteria each time.
Sort the shapes by:
- colour
- shape
- size
- thickness
8. Remember What You Saw
Choose any 5 household items, natural items from the garden or toys and lay them out in front of your child. Allow your child at least half a minute to look at the items and memorize them.
Then, cover them with a cloth and see if your child can recall all 5 items. Start with fewer items if your child is younger and increase the number with time.
Then, place 5 items and remove only one item. Ask your child which item was removed from the set. Then try and remove 2 items.
9. Remember the Order
A variation on the above game which teaches sequential memory is to ask your child to watch you place 5 items down and then mix them and get your child to place them in the same order you did.
You can also use the cards from the matching game above. Place 5 cards on the table, cover them and get your child to find the 5 cards in their set and place them in the correct order.
10. Where’s Waldo?
Where’s Waldo, or originally Where’s Wally from Britain, is a fun series of books where you have to find Waldo in a maze of people in different scenes.
These books are great as a visual perceptual activity and are heaps of fun too.
11. Straight Edge Puzzles
Straight-edge puzzles are different from regular jigsaw puzzles because the skill is not in matching the puzzle shapes, but rather in looking at the detail in the picture and matching colours, lines, etc.
12. Can You See What It Is?
Place a set of 5 or 6 shapes on a table in a line. Cover half of each shape at the same time by placing a sheet of paper or cloth over them. Ask your child to name the shape.
Vary this game by showing half images in books, or showing an ear of an animal, for example, and guessing what animal it belongs to.
I hope you enjoyed these ideas for developing your child’s visual perception. There are many different games that can be played and these ideas will hopefully inspire you to make up your own games too.
Here are a few ideas for further developing visual memory.
ELBA
Monday 15th of April 2024
Awesome article and very informative. Thanks for sharing!!!!
Tanja McIlroy
Wednesday 17th of April 2024
Thanks for your feedback, Elba!
Malleus Draconia
Monday 5th of February 2024
wonderful, my son had a great time doing thee. Thanks for the recommendations!
Tanja McIlroy
Tuesday 6th of February 2024
I'm glad to hear it!
Begam pervin
Wednesday 5th of April 2023
It is very helpful and effective for my son
Tanja Mcilroy
Thursday 13th of April 2023
I'm glad you found this helpful!
Mahmood
Tuesday 13th of December 2022
My grandson lives in a different state. I talk to him on the phone. I would like to use this opportunity and make it a learning experience for him. Please suggest some games I can use on the phone, and help him develop his memory and perception skills.
Tanja Mcilroy
Wednesday 14th of December 2022
Hi there, you could try some of the activities in these articles: https://empoweredparents.co/word-games-to-play-in-the-car/ https://empoweredparents.co/auditory-memory-games/ Why not tell him stories over the phone? https://empoweredparents.co/short-bedtime-stories/ I hope that helps! Tanja
Adriana
Wednesday 23rd of November 2022
Adorei todo o conteúdo, parabéns!
Tanja Mcilroy
Wednesday 23rd of November 2022
Obrigado, Adriana!