Visual Discrimination Activities:
Learn To Pay Attention To Detail!

Visual discrimination activities can make a big difference to your child's visual perceptual development. 

This important skill can also be described as “paying attention to detail" and is vital for reading, writing and other school skills.

If you are looking for fun, practical ways to help your child see differences in letters and words, read on! These hands-on games, puzzles and creative ideas are ideal for kids in early elementary and beyond!

Key Takeaways For Busy Parents:

  • Importance: Visual discrimination skills are essential for reading and writing; helps children notice subtle differences between objects or images.
  • Kids With Difficulties: Children struggling with visual discrimination may find it challenging to identify small differences, affecting letter formation, reading and map-reading.
  • Activities at Home: Jigsaw puzzles, coin collecting, and games like Spot It, can all improve attention to detail. 
  • Printable Resources: Use these printable worksheets and games to give additional support at home. 
what is visual discrimination? With activities and tips to help kids develop visual discrimination skills

Visual Discrimination Difficulties

Younger children with poor skills may:

  • struggle to match clothing, socks, or cutlery, especially when the differences are subtle
  • struggle to see the difference between similar objects (eg coins, especially foreign coins which happen to be similar to local currency)
visual discrimination helps you see the difference between coinsSpot the difference?

At school, a child with visual discrimination difficulties may:

  • struggle to see the difference between similar looking letters and words (eg b / d,    b / p,    5 / S,    won’t / want,    car / cat) - this can affect reading and letter formation skills
  • have difficulty completing spot-the-difference type activities
  • be unable to work with maps, graphs and other learning tasks that require attention to small details

If you are at all concerned about your child's skills, please seek a professional opinion. 

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For your convenience, I have linked to a few items on Amazon (marked #Ad) that are similar to what I use. I will receive a small commission if you purchase something through my links but you are under no obligation to purchase anything!

Visual Discrimination Games - Older Kids

There are lots of preschool and kindergarten ideas out there, and I cover those elsewhere on my site, but it is always a challenge to find visual discrimination activities for older kids.

Here are some resources and games I have used with older kids at home and at school:

Speed Match is a great printable download from Your Therapy Source, that I often use. It involves cutting out a set of shapes and then matching them to the shapes on a top sheet, with a time limit.

For older kids, I print the pages in black and white to increase the visual challenge, and we use the time limit when we play, which I don't do with younger kids.

speed matching game

You can also play Spot It!#Ad (or Dobble #Ad, if you are in Europe) - this game works on figure-ground perception and visual discrimination skills, but most kids don't know this and just play it for fun!

It is a fast paced game, so if your child struggles to play it in a group, then have your child just play one-on-one with you so you can give a little extra time until his/her skills improve.

spot it game for visual perception

Classic Spot It!#Ad
AKA Dobble#Ad in Europe

These are some additional games for visual discrimination that you may be able to find at your local toy department:

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Try A Coin Collection

Coin collecting is a  hobby that our family took up during the pandemic, and it has been a great way to help kids learn to pay attention to small details.

You don't need lots of fancy resources to get started - use the coins you have around the house, and ask your family and friends for any interesting or foreign coins they may have. A magnifying glass and a box or scrapbook for storing the coins is a good start, and if your child enjoys it, you can look into getting a simple coin collection album#Ad.

Sorting local coins by date means your child needs to take a close look at the numbers.

Sorting foreign coins means your child needs to match the coins to the ones shown on a numismatics website.

Try Numista - find the country of issue and then filter your search with the date on the coin.

coin collecting for visual discrimination skillsSorting coins

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Build Skills With Jigsaw Puzzles

Jigsaw puzzles are a fantastic way of helping your child develop a host of visual perceptual skills - including visual discrimination skills.

It is worth investing in good quality puzzles, perhaps swapping or sharing puzzles with family and friends, in order to give your child lots of opportunity to build these skills.

If your child struggles to build puzzles, then check out these pages of my site for some inspiration and encouragement:

Tips and strategies to help older kids do puzzles - super helpful for developing visual perception skills!

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Visual Discrimination Activities for Preschoolers

If the activities suggested on this page are too challenging for your child, or if your child is younger, then check out my suggestions on these pages of my site:


Printable Visual Discrimination Worksheets

In addition to Speed Match, which I have mentioned above, there are a few other lovely printable resources that work on visual discrimination skills - check them out! 

Visual discrimination worksheets are a helpful way of consolidating the skills developed during visual discrimination activities.

visual discrimination printable resourcesVisual Discrimination Worksheets



Developing strong visual discrimination skills can easily be worked into your family time, with puzzles, fun games and activities like coin collecting.

All of these help your child pay attention to detail, which can help boost reading and writing skills.  

Sign up for my occasional newsletter and get your FREE Visual Perception Info Sheet, a handy cheat sheet that breaks down these important skills.

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Related Pages

Here are some more visual perceptual pages that you may find helpful!

figure ground perception activitiesFigure-Ground Perception Activities
learn more about visual perceptual skillsAll About Visual Perceptual Skills
visual sequential memory activitiesVisual Sequential Memory Activities
View my OT Mom resources - instant downloads - start helping your child today!Instant Downloads! Start Helping Your Child Today!
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South Africans can pay in rands!

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South Africans can pay in rands!




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