Visual Closure Activities

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Visual closure is the ability to correctly perceive an object or word, even when it is partly hidden.

This visual perception skill helps you to quickly make sense of what you see, even if it is not completely visible to you, which means you do not have to see every little detail in order to recognize something. 

You use visual closure skills when:

  • you can figure out what a road sign says, even when part of the sign is obscured
  • you can make sense of words on a smudged page
  • you can recognize an object even when you can only see part of it
  • you can find a missing item when it is partly hidden

In school, kids need this skill in order to:

  • read more fluently
  • quickly recognize words by their shape or general arrangement of letters
  • remember letters and words, especially sight words (together with visual memory skills)

How Can I Help My Child Develop This Skill?

A truly visually-based closure activity should be done completely visually, without drawing. This requires the brain to correctly perceive what the completed picture/word would look like, without using motor skills.

Often, a worksheet will be given that requires the child to complete a picture by drawing in the missing lines. This is NOT a visual closure activity! 

Use the simple activities below to help develop your child's skills!

visual closure tips and activities for young kids

These visual perception activities are intended to encourage your child's normal visual perceptual development.
If you suspect your child has visual perceptual delays, please seek a professional opinion.


Toddler Visual Closure Activities with Toys

Use toys that your child is already familiar with. I like to use toy animals as shown below.

Partially hide 2 or 3 toys under a cloth without your child seeing, then ask your child to identify/name them.

Visual Closure activity for toddlersCan your child identify these farm animals?
visual closure animal activity for toddlersCan your child identify these animals?

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Preschool Activities With Shapes and Peg Puzzles

Make sure your child knows the names of the shapes that you will be using!

Younger children can use simpler shapes, while older children can be challenged with harder shapes.

Partially hide a few shapes under the cloth and ask your child to name them, or to decide which one fits in each shape-sorter hole (as shown).

shape activity for visual closurevisual closure shape activity

In this activity, I partially covered 4 shapes, and placed 2 whole shapes on the side. I then asked the child to decide which partially covered shape would match the uncovered ones. 

Visual closure preschool activity with shapesCan your child match the shapes?

You can also make use of simple form puzzles or peg puzzles.

Partly cover the puzzle pieces, and ask your child to identify which piece would fit into each hole.

visual closure activityCan your child match the animals?

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Visual Closure Worksheets

For older kids, printable worksheets can be useful. You may be able to find some "hidden pictures" or similar worksheets in activity books that you already have at home.

The most important thing is that the worksheets must require visual recognition, and should not require pencil work to fill in missing lines!

visual closure activityWhich zoo animal is hiding behind the bars?
visual closure worksheetFind the pairs (partially hidden by the clouds) that match the top pair.

Visual Closure Games and Activities is my favorite printable visual closure resource, that I use over and over again!

Some of the activities are worksheet style, while others can be cut up to make a Lotto-style game for younger kids.

They are mostly suitable for preschool and kindergarten children, depending on the ability of the child.

Printable visual closure worksheetsPrintable visual closure worksheets

Puzzles on Paper is another great printable resource that you can use over and over again to help your child work on visually completing what they see.

There are more than 40 puzzles in this download!

You can laminate them to use over and over again with different kids, because the child can just point to the correct answer without needing to draw a line.

Printable visual closure worksheetsPrintable visual closure activities

Visual closure skills are just one of the many visual perceptual skills that children need to develop during childhood. All of them are important and there is a some overlap between the different skills.

If you want more information about how the different visual perceptual skills develop, and how they affect learning, then take a look at these pages of my site:


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