Visual and Auditory Skills

Strong visual and auditory skills are essential foundations for reading. At Stanley School, we provide dedicated support to develop these pre-reading skills that many of our pupils need to access phonics and reading instruction successfully.

Visual Skills Through Positive Looking

We use the Positive Looking programme to help pupils develop the visual skills essential for reading. This structured approach supports pupils to track objects and text from left to right (the direction of text), focus and maintain attention on visual information without becoming distracted, discriminate between different shapes and symbols (crucial for distinguishing between letters), and coordinate their eye movements for smooth, efficient reading.

Pupils develop these skills through carefully sequenced activities. Visual tracking work might involve following moving objects with their eyes, tracking along lines and patterns, or using a finger or pointer to track text. Visual discrimination activities help pupils match identical pictures and symbols, sort by colour, shape and size, find differences in similar images, and recognise letters and words in different fonts and contexts. Visual memory games support pupils to remember sequences of pictures, recall which objects have been shown, and build up their sight vocabulary of frequently encountered words.

We also work on figure-ground perception, helping pupils find objects in busy pictures, locate specific words on a page, and distinguish foreground from background. For some pupils, we reduce visual clutter when needed to support their developing skills.

Auditory Skills for Reading

We systematically develop listening and attention through environmental sounds work, where pupils identify everyday sounds like doorbells and running water, go on sound walks around school, and play sound lotto and matching games. Auditory discrimination activities help pupils distinguish between different sounds, recognise similar and different sounds, and identify loud/quiet and high/low sounds.

Auditory memory is developed through remembering sequences of sounds, following multi-step auditory instructions, recalling rhythms and patterns, and building up memory for the phonics sounds they're learning. Phonological awareness activities include rhyming songs and games, syllable clapping and counting, initial sound recognition, and sound blending and segmenting that directly support phonics learning.

Bringing Skills Together

We combine visual and auditory skills through sound-symbol correspondence work, where pupils link what they hear to what they see. Talking books combine listening with visual tracking, helping pupils coordinate these two essential skills. Interactive phonics apps, including Bug Club Phonics digital resources, provide immediate auditory feedback for visual choices. Music and movement activities help pupils coordinate what they see, hear, and do, integrating these skills in engaging ways.

Individual Support and Adaptations

Each pupil receives a baseline assessment of their visual and auditory skills, identifying specific areas of strength and need. We then create personalised programmes targeting these areas, with regular monitoring of progress. We adapt the environment through appropriate lighting that reduces glare, acoustic management to minimise background noise during focused activities, clear and uncluttered visual displays, and consistent positioning to ensure pupils can see and hear effectively. We also work closely with occupational therapists for visual perceptual skills, speech and language therapists for auditory processing, sensory support services for pupils with visual or hearing impairments, and educational psychologists for assessment and programme planning.

By systematically developing these foundational skills, we ensure every pupil has the visual and auditory capabilities needed to access phonics and reading  successfully.