ABSTRACT
Throughout this text you have read about the importance of listening in achieving a successful personal life. As children, teens, and young adults, school is one of the places where you spend significant portions of your time. As you know, speaking and listening are the primary methods by which you acquire knowledge. However, the educational aspects of listening begin long before you start school. Think, for example, about how you acquired language. Your parents and other family members encouraged you to talk to them. As they coaxed you to say certain words and names, you listened to the sounds until the day you were able to actually form them. Listening, then, is the first of the communication skills that a child develops. It is fundamental to speaking, reading, and writing.1 Thus, we learn to listen then speak, speak then read, and read then write.
