Summer is a great time for audio books!
Are your days stretching long with time to fill for your kiddos? Or, are your days filled with car trips and vacations? Are you beating the summer heat by staying indoors close to the air conditioner? No matter what your summer looks like, audio books are a great way to pass the time!
Listening to audios builds auditory skills.
Would you consider yourself to be an auditory learner? Or, are you more of a visual learner? Then again, perhaps you learn more easily by doing. Not everyone is strong in auditory learning, yet it is often an important way to learn! This means auditory skills are worth building. No matter what your child’s preferred learning style, as your kiddos listen to audio books they build auditory skills.
Do audio books only work for auditory learners?
Of course, auditory learners will enjoy audio books more. Since it is their preferred style of learning, auditory learners will listen to almost anything! However, all learners can enjoy audio books if you find the type that suits their listening style.
Try different types!
Try different types of audio books to find your child’s style. Perhaps your child would enjoy a dramatized version or one that is performed radio-style. Audios with background music, multiple voices and performers, and sound effects may have more of an appeal. Often the narrator’s voice makes a difference as to how easy it is to listen to and understand an audio book. The genre makes a difference too! Maybe your child loves mysteries, fantasies, humorous books, or nonfiction.
Set aside time to listen each day.
To enjoy the audio book, set aside 20-30 minutes each day for your child to listen. We encourage our boys to listen while they are playing quietly, or drawing, or model-building, or riding in the car, or laying in their beds. As with any book, it can take time and continuity to get “into” a book. If your child gets hooked, he/she may want to listen much longer!
Try audios this summer and see what you think!
So, try a variety of audios with your child, and see if you can hook your listener. If you do, you will be building important auditory skills in an effortless way! Plus, it’s just plain fun to get lost in a good book!
Blessings,
Carrie
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es!!! This summer has been our first try with audio books, and they LOVE them! I’m surprise how much they want to hear books we’ve already read together!
Also, in case anybody needs a recommendation, we are LOVING Jonathan Park!!
That’s so good to hear, Janelle! Carrie’s sons loved the Jonathan Park series as well!!!
Love this idea! Does Carrie have any lists of suggested audiobooks for preschoolers/K/1st grade age?
*Here is a post Carrie wrote about audios she used with her 6 yo, taken from HOD’s message board…
Here’s some longer picture book type audios my just turned 6 year old is enjoying on audio:
James Herriot’s Treasury for Children
The Jan Karon Story Hour (3 books on one CD)
The Frances Audio Collection (4 books on one CD)
The Little Golden Treasury Audio (4 books on CD)
Lilly’s Big Day and other stories (10 stories by Kevin Henkes on 1 CD)
Here’s some longer chapter books on audio we’re listening to at lunch this year or did last year (6 year old included):
Winnie-the-Pooh (unabridged)
The House at Pooh Corner (unabridged)
The Tales of Beatrix Potter (unabridged)
Mouse and the Motorcycle
A Bear Called Paddington
The Cricket in Times Square
Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie
Trumpet of the Swan
Some of these titles are used in Beyond and Bigger as read-alouds, but I’m just giving ideas of books that are worth listening to more than one time. 😀
Blessings,
Carrie
We bought a yoto and pick the cards very carefully because it is secular but you can make your own and I added hide em in your heart and he loves the music. He plays it on his own time.