How Hearing Works for a 6-Year-Old — Two Simple Rephrasings

Here are two simple ways to say how hearing works:

Way 1 — Step by step

1. Something makes a sound and the air around it wiggles (these are sound waves).
2. Your outer ear (the part you can see) catches the wiggles and sends them to the eardrum.
3. The eardrum shakes and moves three tiny bones in the middle ear.
4. Those tiny bones push the shaking into the cochlea, a small spiral tube like a snail shell.
5. Inside the cochlea the shaking becomes signals that nerve cells can understand.
6. The nerves carry the signals to your brain, and your brain tells you what you heard.

Way 2 — Short and simple

1. Noise makes invisible ripples in the air.
2. The outer ear sends the ripples to the eardrum, which wiggles.
3. Three tiny bones pass the wiggle into the snail-shaped cochlea.
4. The cochlea turns the wiggle into nerve messages.
5. The nerves bring the messages to your brain, and you hear the sound.