I have been wanting to share my love of audiobooks for kids with you for a while. As many of us are home and children are learning from home, I thought no better time to tell you how great audiobooks can be for you and your child and share some deals you can get right now.
What are audiobooks? Audiobooks are a voice recording of text that you listen to. Audiobooks and their accessibility have come a long way. Most audiobooks are read by a human voice but some are read by a computerized voice. Some audiobooks are strictly audio while others will have the text as well, and some highlight text as it is being read.
Why do I love audiobooks for kids you might ask? I love them for numerous reasons. Overall, audiobooks for kids improve so many essential literacy skills.
Expand Vocabulary
Listening to audiobooks brings a wealth of new vocabulary words. Learning new vocabulary orally will improve oral and reading vocabulary. The child will also be exposed to the language of books and how sentences are structured in written work.
Increase Reading Fluency
Listening to audiobooks helps children become more fluent readers themselves. While listening to fluent readers they will notice how others read smoothly, pause, stress, and use intonation while reading. All very important skills.
Improve Comprehension
Listening to audiobooks will increase comprehension. Children build background knowledge when they are exposed to books. Audiobooks also help the child to develop higher-order thinking skills and critical thinking and listening skills.
Stretch the Accessibility of Text
Audiobooks have the advantage of introducing students to books above their reading level. They also have the ability to help struggling readers accesstext and talk about books that their friends are reading. Audiobooks can also introduce new genres that a child may might not otherwise consider
Gained Independence
For younger readers and struggling readers the ability to gain independence of reading is huge! They don’t need to rely on others to read text above their reading level. The child has the freedom to listen to books anytime and anywhere. This can help them grow a love for reading.
Audiobook Options
Technology is amazing and there are so many options out there. Here are a few suggestions on places to access audiobooks. Many are offering deals while children are being schooled from home.
Epic– free option through June 30th, if a teacher signs your child up, or 30 free days to try it out on your own
Audible– free option while schools are closed
Overdrive– this option is offered through the public libraries- you are able to borrow digital content for free
Learning Ally– a great option for students with a print-based disability such as dyslexia to access over 80,000 human-read audiobooks. You can use code READ50 to get 50% off your annual membership. A Learning Ally Tutorial can also be found here.
Bookshare– another option for students with a print-based disability such as dyslexia to access over 826,324 computer read audiobooks. This option is free.
2 Responses
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