Teaching your child to follow oral directions can begin as soon as your child understands language. This skill is important because it helps your child to build auditory memory, an essential life and school skill. We take for granted that children can remember three-step directions. They cannot do that without practice. I recommend beginning with one direction at a time. For example: "Go get the book." Simple, right? Ok, that's good. Practice directions such as that until your child masters them. Give different directives so your child has to think....but only one direction at a time.
Once your child is really good at following a single direction, add another. For example: "Go get the book and lay it on the table." Or, "Go to your toy box and find the ball." Eventually, you can add and descriptive word, such as," Go to your toy box and find the big ball." This requires that your child remembers to go to the toy box, look for the ball, and discern that it is big. You are teaching not only memory skills but attribute skills, as well. (big, small, thick, thin, etc.)
Finally, you can move to three step directions. This is appropriate when your child is between two and three years old. "Go to your room, find the ball, and bring it to me." Your child will think this is a game and will enjoy the repetition. At this point, you could add a color word if your child is beginning to learn his or her colors. " Go to your room, find the red ball, and bring it to me."
Through these activities, you will be helping to build a skill set for your child that is essential in school success and learning to read. Your child, however, will simply think that Mommy or Daddy knows how to play really good games.
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