Audiobooks and Listening to our “Guest Readers!”
from the desk of Ella MacLeod, literacy coach
I love listening to audiobooks! I have trained for 3 marathons while listening to books. I have driven to Georgia and back each summer listening primarily to auidiobooks. I listen to them while I clean. My two daughters and even my husband have all also become fans of audiobooks; getting sucked into The Land of Stories, Harry Potter, 11 Birthdays and many more. But, I often wondered if listening to audiobooks was the same as reading “real books”. I decided to look to the experts to hear what they had to say about audiobooks, and this is what I found:
Audiobooks can be used to:
- Introduce students to books above their reading level
- Model good interpretive reading
- Teach critical listening
- Highlight the humor in books
- Introduce new genres that students might not otherwise consider
- Introduce new vocabulary or difficult proper names or locales
- Sidestep unfamiliar dialects or accents, Old English, and old-fashioned literary styles
- Provide a read-aloud model
- Provide a bridge to important topics of discussion for parents and children who can listen together while commuting to sporting events, music lessons, or on vacations
- Recapture "the essence and the delights of hearing stories beautifully told by extraordinarily talented storytellers" (Baskin & Harris, 1995, p. 376)
For more on this topic go to http://www.scholastic.com/parents/resources/article/developing-reading-skills/literacy-benefits-listening
In the meantime, we hope you enjoy listening to our Guest Readers! New readers will be featured and added regularly!
