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12 Simple Auditory Memory Activities for Preschool and Kindergarten

Auditory memory, which is part of auditory perception, is an important skill for coping and succeeding in school.

Here are some simple auditory memory games and exercises to try with your kids in class or at home.

What is Auditory Memory?

Auditory memory is one aspect of auditory perception. It involves the ability to remember what is heard and recall it later.

Auditory perception is the process that allows the brain to interpret what is being heard.

Here are some other key aspects that make up auditory perception, as explained by Marike de Witt in her book The Young Child in Context: A psycho-social perspective.

  • Auditory discrimination is the ability to understand what is heard and notice similarities and differences in sounds. 
  • Auditory sequential memory is the ability to remember what sounds or words came first, middle and last.
  • Auditory analysis involves the ability to break words into their individual sounds. This skill is essential for learning to sound out words to read or spell.
  • Auditory synthesis is similar but involves putting the sounds in words back together.
  • Auditory foreground-background discrimination involves focusing on some sounds while eliminating others in the background. 

How Auditory Memory Affects Reading

Auditory memory is important because children need it to understand what they hear and follow directions at school.

In addition to improving general school performance, auditory memory is a vital component of auditory perception, which plays a key role in reading ability.

A child must learn to remember sounds and manipulate sounds to decode words accurately when reading and spelling.

12 Activities to Develop and Improve Auditory Memory

Here are 12 auditory memory games to play with your children.

1. Listening Bingo

Provide children with Bingo boards featuring pictures or words. Instead of showing the pictures, say the words aloud. Kids have to rely on their listening skills to know what square to cover.

You can adjust the difficulty level based on your children’s needs. You can describe the object or image, and they have to listen to figure out what square you are referring to.

2. Musical Chairs

Musical Chairs is a fun game that kids will love at any age.

Set up chairs in a circle and have one less than the number of people playing. Play the music and have the children walk around the chairs. When the music stops, everyone rushes to find a chair.

The person without a chair to sit on is out. This game involves listening to the music to hear when it stops.

3. Recorded Sounds

Record different sounds around the house. If you have a pet, record their sound, or the dishwasher, blow dryer, etc.

Play those recordings for your children and have them identify what the sound is.

Cartoon dog barking

This allows them to think back to what they already know and remember to recognize the different sounds.

4. Treasure Hunt

Hide something your children enjoy, whether it is a treat or a fun toy. Then, give them clues as to where to find their treasure.

The goal is to gradually provide multiple instructions at once to make it more challenging to remember.

5. Sing a Song

Have kids learn a new song. Then ask them to sing it to you. You can also learn some new nursery rhymes or poems.

This engages their auditory memory as they work to remember the lyrics.

Mom and daughter singing in kitchen

6. Sequence Memory

List items such as numbers or words and ask your children to repeat them in the correct order.

Start off small and see how many they can get in a row. This also will help their sequential auditory memory.

Here are more sequencing activities for preschoolers.

7. Drawing

Choose an object or scene for the children to draw. Explain the steps to draw the picture successfully, sometimes using 2-part instructions.

Give verbal instructions to help them practise their listening skills and remember the sequence.

Example:

  • Draw a house on a hill.
  • Draw two windows on the house and add a red roof.
  • Draw three clouds in the sky.

Here are some great listen-and-draw activity ideas.

Child drawing a picture

8. Chain Games

This is another fun auditory game to play with children. Start by saying, “I went to the store and bought…” and add one item. The children then repeat that phrase, adding an item to the list.

Continue adding items until someone forgets one, then begin a new round.

This helps strengthen auditory memory as kids need to remember a long list of items.

9. Take Messages

Have kids take messages to others in the house or school. Say something like, “Tell Johnny that I need him to pick up his green socks.” See if your children relay the message correctly and include every detail.

Son telling his father something in his ear

10. Remember What You Heard

Before doing an activity or playing a game, say a string of a few words and ask your children to remember them. Then get involved in any activity, such as moulding playdough or playing a board game.

After the activity, have your children recall all the words. This helps with long-term auditory memory.

11. Story Time

Reading to your children is a simple activity but has great value.

Mother reading to child

Read a story aloud. See if your children can remember parts of the story as you go along. At the end, ask if they can recall what happened at the beginning of the story.

12. Telephone

To play the telephone game, start by sitting in a circle. One person thinks of a phrase and whispers it to the person next to them. Then, each person takes a turn, whispering what they heard. In the end, the last person repeats what they heard out loud.

The goal is to pass the correct phrase to the end of the circle. This often doesn’t happen, making the game full of fun and laughter.

Enjoy trying these auditory memory activities with your children!

Here are more auditory perception activities for kids.

12 easy auditory memory games to help prepare your child for reading - Pinnable image

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Esther

Monday 3rd of February 2025

Well done to all involved in the creation of this content. Very helpful.

Tanja McIlroy

Monday 10th of February 2025

Thank you, Esther!

Saf

Tuesday 25th of October 2022

What a fantastic article? Do you have links to the journals/books you used as reference?

Tanja Mcilroy

Tuesday 25th of October 2022

Thank you! I have added my sources at the end of the article.

Karen McDonald

Tuesday 22nd of September 2020

Nicely written article!

Tanja Mcilroy

Friday 25th of September 2020

Thank you Karen!

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