Audio Books

I am a firm believer in reading aloud to kids. When I was a teacher I read both fiction and non-fiction books to my students. For students who were struggling readers, improving verbal reading comprehension skills and vocabulary often were ignored at the upper elementary level. Reading aloud did not prevent students from working on independent reading skills. Instead, it strengthened listening skills and gave them a chance to access material they might not have independently.

One long standing gift giving tradition has been buying books in combination with toys for presents for the kids in my family. I asked one relative for some book recommendations for his daughter. He credited me with buying, Alcatraz Versus The Evil Librarians on CD for his daughter. I have often lost track of which books I have bought for which kids. I come from a large family. My brothers and sisters now have kids and some even grandkids. Keeping track of which child has a certain book can be challenging. However, the CD was the key. I realized I rarely buy books on CD. Unless I know a parent is going to play them in the car, or the child will listen at home, the gift can be more of a burden than a help. If the parents request them, I will look. Normally however, I stick to print.

Sadly, this was the only book in the series that had been issued on CD. I bought the set that has been published to date in print for the child. It was a hit and by vacation's end, even Grandma had finished the first book before her flight back to Florida. It did get me rethinking the benefits of audio books.

Recently I started borrowing audio books from the library to listen to while exercising. I hate exercising and need distraction. I have tried music and TV, but they are not enough of a distraction to make me forget that I am torturing my body. After thinking about how excited the whole family got over listening to this book while traveling to and from school and errands, I got to wondering how distracted I might get while listening to a book and working out.

The first book I borrowed was Stephen King's The Colorado Kid from the library. I had been watching the TV series Haven that is loosely based on this book, but lacked the patience to wade through the book. My exercise times doubled as I found myself wanting to finish the disk. I am currently working on Salem's Lot . My exercise time is up to an hour and a half.

I have one of my favorite Agatha Christie novels and the book that started my interest in audio CD's on request from the library to keep my exercise routine going.

This could also be a great strategy to increase literacy time for families. Many spend a great deal of time in the car traveling. This time could be utilized to improve comprehension and listening skills by adding audio CD’s to the travel time. Libraries do carry a number of titles or these books can be great presents. Choose titles that make kids frustrated when the car stops. I had forgotten how useful audio books were during my MBTA commutes to work years ago. I would hate to turn off the story if I was at a good part when I arrived at work. It made me look forward to the trip home so I could return to the plot.

Choose stories for interest more than education. If you want to improve listening and comprehension skills, there are many good titles will keep kids coming back and improve those valuable skills. If they are bored, they will lose interest in the exercise.

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Literacy Improvement Using Extended Family

Some relatives more than others are willing to be involved with children’s education in a productive manner when they are given a direction or specific method to “plug in” to help. When a specific path is provided it can provide less friction and positive outcomes.

One area literacy experts are still pushing is encouraging parents not to abandon is reading aloud to children when children have mastered decoding. While children should be increasing the amount of independent reading they do, it is important that children still be exposed to books at higher comprehension levels and are still hearing models of decoding. Reading aloud provides both activities.

It is also important to vary the materials children have access to in order to insure that they are developing reading comprehension skills in all genres of fiction and non-fiction literature. As adults we tend to have our own preferences and these may or may not influence our child’s choices. However, introducing them to people who do read and enjoy genres that are different than what we are naturally drawn to can help children learn to enjoy different types of literature.

One book I would strongly suggest parents read is Jim Trelease's The Read-Aloud Handbook. This give parents great strategies and specific resources on continuing the read aloud process. It also can be useful in helping engage extended family in choosing books to share with your child.


Not all relatives are going to get on board but many will if you can make the commitment simple and easy to handle. Even for distant relatives there are many technologies available that allow them to share a book with a child with or without a visual.

Also consider answers to those challenging what to get the child for birthday and Christmas questions. Some relatives truly do not know how to approach shopping for a child. Consider some easy literary options. Magazines are easy for most adults to purchase subscriptions for and many age with the child. You will need to tell the person when the child is ready for the next level but this can be a great learning opportunity for your child and a simple and often not overly expensive way for a relative to remember your child’s special dates. You can click this link to find some of the magazine links but there are many magazines for children that follow general and specific interests.

Three Books I've Most Often Suggested or Given to Family and Friends Regarding Kids

I've been trying to collect my thoughts around the posts I've been making and the questions people ask me. As I learn more about blogging I've come to see this as a way to collect information that I've shared with people in a variety of formats in a contained manner. In this way I hope to be able to send the information as a a link, or perhaps just a specific entry to someone when I realize it answers the question I've rewritten again and again. Sometimes it justs creates a starting point for a conversations, as some of my financial posts have done for my husband and I. I've started this entry because there are in fact three books that I constantly post about and I've decided to collect them here so I can remember the titles without having to go search for them myself on Amazon. I actually have thought about bookmarking them as favorites on my wishlist so I can just go and click on them when I want to give the link to someone so they can research the title.

There are two books I most often buy for parents. The first I often give as a shower gift or a gift when the baby is born. It is a great resource for parents on reading to children. I've never met a parent that didn't know reading aloud to children was a good activity for their child and that they really needed to think about doing it but I have met parents who are intimidated by the process. They don't feel they read well aloud, they are nervous about "doing it right" and they still have those uncomfortable feelings that linger from childhood about reading in public.

One of the reasons I buy this book for so many people is that it addresses a multitude of issues with reading aloud from the nervous readers, to those who are truly bored with hearing the same story night after night and are begging for strategies to introduce new literature to their children, and those who want to know what books really are better read alouds than others. While some books are long cherished childhood favorites, some books truly do make better read alouds than others. Some books are meant to be shared and others are better when the child is ready to read them independently. This book has gone through several generations since I first read it as an undergraduate but it is still the one I order when I have a friend or family member expecting. I just haven't found a better replacement.



The second book, in fact is a series of two books by the same author on the same topic, geared toward two separate audiences, teachers and parents. One I've given to parents and the other to teachers. I can't tell you the number of times I've posted this to websites when parents ask for a book about disipline and children that works. I bought the teaching one the first year I was teaching when I ended up with five children who had major disipline problems. The special education teacher I was working with had no experience with behavior disorders, her background was very strong however, in learning disabilities. So I needed to become self taught and quickly as my lack of understanding and resources made the job extremely challenging. At the same time a family member was also struggling with a child who was very strong willed. When I found the teacher's version of the book I immediatly went on-line to find out if they had the parent's version and ordered a copy. It was a great book. Like the book above it has surfaced in several versions because people keep reading it. The advice hasn't gotten old.









If nothing else I think I've just saved myself time and effort from searching for the titles and I can now refer to my own blog when looking for them instead of hopping on the Internet and searching for them. For those who are concerned this is a random post to generate clicks, I would encourage you to read the books at the library first. See if in fact they are books that work for you and then purchase them. There are thousands of books on the market, free previews are always your best option for determining which books make it into your permanant library. I've certainly done my share for these authors by bringing them into people's homes.