Parents often ask us for educational ideas and activities their children can do at home. Our favorite and most recommended activity is audiobooks. Whether your child would benefit from boosting their listening comprehension and language skills or you’re just looking for a fun way to occupy their time, audiobooks are a great resource. Here are some of our top reasons we love them!
Audiobooks boost listening and oral comprehension skills.
Due to the nature of our society and the prevalence of technology, many children have strong visual skills, but are lacking in oral comprehension. Audiobooks provide a great opportunity for children to practice listening skills, which will also carry over into the classroom where they are expected to understand lessons and directions presented orally. Parents can help boost comprehension at home by talking to their child about the book they’re listening to, having them summarize the story, or helping them draw connections between the story and their life, other books they’ve read, etc. Another helpful strategy is to allow your child to read along with a hard copy of the book as they listen in order to help build reading fluency and understanding.
Audiobooks help to build language and vocabulary.
Audiobooks provide children with the opportunity to “read” books that may otherwise be above their reading level, which helps to expose them to a wider range of topics and vocabulary. Incorporating the classics, such as books like “Little Women” or “Huckleberry Finn”, is another way to provide students with richer vocabulary that they may not typically be exposed to in everyday life. While we love a good podcast, we find that audiobooks are much better for language exposure because the writing is intentional. The words are more complex and are meant to describe things in ways we don’t normally.
Audiobooks are a great alternative at bedtime.
Reading bedtime stories and snuggling with your child are great bonding opportunities. But let’s be honest, sometimes mom or dad just need a glass of wine and time to themselves at the end of a long day. Audiobook narrators never get tired like we do and always read with perfect English and fantastic clarity and intonation. We often recommend parents play the audiobook through a bluetooth speaker, such as Alexa or a Sonos, and put it on the sleep timer. That way, your child knows that when their audiobooks automatically come on, it’s time for them to be in bed with pajamas on and teeth brushed! Allow them to listen for 30 minutes or so, and then set the sleep timer to automatically shut the book off as your child falls asleep.
Audiobooks help to develop a love of reading and stories.
For children who may struggle with dyslexia and other reading disorders, they are often resistant to reading because it is difficult for them. Audiobooks are a great way to instill a love of reading without the stress and still give them exposure to all of the wonderful language and vocabulary books and stories help to provide!
You can take audiobooks anywhere!
Whether it’s in the car driving to school or riding on an airplane to Grandma’s, audiobooks are completely portable through our phones and tablets. If you really want to go “old school”, you can even check out CD’s from your local library or check out their offerings online.
One of our favorite resources for audiobooks is Learning Ally. A yearly subscription provides access to thousands of audiobooks for your child to choose from. Right now, Learning Ally is doing a special offer for 50% off your first year’s subscription! See details below.
Audible is another great resource and is even offering free streaming of select books while schools are closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For more ideas and resources, check out our other blog posts here. For more information about how our team can support you with home learning, visit our website.