Did you know... learning to ignore what they see helps children to read

We often think about how to focus our child’s attention, often believing we need to direct their gaze to one item or another, and make sure that they are looking at what they need to see in order to learn. But did you know that a big part of learning to focus on something involves learning to ignore everything else?  

This is called figure-ground perception – the ability to tune out what is not important to focus on the thing you’re interested in. When thinking about what we see, it’s visual figure-ground perception. 

Right now, your visual figure-ground perception is working to remove all the background images your eyes see surrounding you, so that you can read this.  

In short, your brain is having to ignore most of what your eyes can see to focus on the important details. We use visual figure-ground perception to focus on where we’re going, and what we’re learning and finding something in a busy space.  

Like most skills, we are not born with this ability finely honed, so we need to learn it as we grow.  

This explains why young children so often struggle to focus on one thing – especially in a busy or exciting environment.  

Children will learn to filter out distractions using visual figure-ground skills through practice, and through their everyday experiences. Here are some ways you can help them to learn this important skill as part of your daily routine.  

• Simple spotting games. Ask your child to help you find a red t-shirt when folding the washing, a specific item in the fridge or a certain toy in their room.  
• Sharing a story. When you’re reading together, pause occasionally to encourage your child to spot a specific picture, letter or number on the page.  
• Get them looking. If you spy something interesting when you’re out and about, don’t point to it. Instead tell your child what you saw and encourage them to look for it themselves. Instead of ‘Look at this black dog” try saying “I see a black dog! Do you see it?”  
• Play puzzles and games. Games that require close attention to shapes or pictures like jigsaw puzzles, simple card games and even ‘I-spy’ books are all brilliant for developing visual figure-ground skills.