Visual discrimination

Occupational therapy

﻿Hi, I'm really looking forward to our lesson today. I hope you are too. Before we get started, this is just a little reminder. We're here to support any approaches you might already be using and any work you might have already been set. We know that this lesson is going to be going out to so many different children and families. So, if you're not sure about anything or have any questions, then please do contact your usual therapy team. Today is all about matching and sorting and learning how to do this and why it's so important in our everyday life. What is visual discrimination? Sounds scary, but it's not. So, this is our ability to see and recognise the differences and similarities between things. So, you can say, Oh, these balls are the same because they are round, but they different because one is really big, the basketball and one is teeny tiny, the ping pong ball. It's especially really important when we're learning to read or to write or when we're learning to be able to sort items, okay? We need to be able to see small differences, so that we don't mix up letters like b and d or g and p and it can help us recognise the differences and similarities in the colour, the size, the shape and the texture. So, when you are helping to fold and sort the washing, you'll know that all the stripey socks should go together or all the white socks go in a different place to maybe say your long football socks. For today, I want you to find a big selection of toys and objects of various types, some "Spot the Difference" puzzles or books and some dominoes. When you have everything ready, restart the video. So, we're going to organise first by type. So, ask an adult to put together a large selection of toys or objects in front of you. Then you have to organise them into groups of similar and different, okay? So, for example, you could put all the large objects together and then you could put the medium size objects together and then the small objects together. You could say, okay, these items are all hard, whereas these items are all soft or these items are squishy, whereas these are not, okay? And you can keep on repeating this activity with different properties such as colour or what they're used for. Have a go. Okay, let's play spot the difference. So, I want you to find some puzzles, some "Spot the Difference" puzzles on sheets, in books or you can ask an adult to help you find some on the internet. I've also added some for you on the next few slides. What I want you to do is to complete this by looking at both pictures and seeing where the differences are, okay? If you want to, you can circle the items to help you keep track of what you have found already and you can make this more challenging by using pictures, which are much more complicated or with quite a few more differences, okay? So, can you look at this picture and spot three differences? I found one, I found three, how about you? Look at this picture, can you spot three differences? Hmm, I can. Oh yeah, I found one and let's see, the little yellow bean bag there, can you see? Is missing, this line here is much shorter than the line on the other side and one more difference as well, it's a little bit tricky, have a look. Do you want a clue? Okay, it's near the back. So, look over there. That beam is blue and over here, it's kind of not even there, okay? How about this picture? Can you spot three differences? Hmm, let's see. Oh, no clues this time. See if you can do it. I bet you can. Look very carefully, okay. Now, you pause the video to try spot the difference. For the next activity you need dominoes. Now, you can either have dominoes that have number dots on them or you can have dominoes that have colours on them to make it much easier or dominoes which have farm animals, loads of different ones that you can find, okay? You can even make your own by cutting out some shapes. So, what I want you to do is deal out the dominoes between you, an activity partner or an adult and take it in turns placing down a domino. So, you have to make sure that when you place your domino, the number of dots on one side is the same as the other domino that it's touching, okay? Have a go at this game. So, we can make this easier by reducing the amount of toys or objects that we use. If you're struggling to think of how you would organise the toys, ask an adult to give you an idea just to start you off and they can give you a gentle prompt if you need a clue, such as, are they all smooth? Okay? Remember, do the best you can. Practise practise practise, have fun and I can't wait to see all the lovely work that you've been doing. If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your wonderful work on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Visual discrimination

Visual discrimination

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

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