Don't forget audiobooks for your summer reading

June 16, 10:19 AMNorfolk Homeschooling ExaminerSherene Silverberg

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Shira's making a flower chain whilst listening to "The Secret Garden"

When we think about summer reading, we tend to think about paper and ink books.  I agree that paper and ink books are vitally important, but I also think that we homeschoolers miss a golden opportunity when we forget about audiobooks.

Audiobooks allow children to listen to literature well above their reading ability and to literature which is written in more archaic English and thus difficult to read as a beginning reader. This helps them realize that there is a world of great literature just around the corner.  

I started my kids off on 19th century British literature like Mary Poppins, Dr Doolittle, Peter Pan, Treasure Island, The Jungle Book and Raggedy Ann and Andy (OK, I know that this last one is not British, but it's old and quaint and uses a good vocabulary).  

My kids would listen to their audiobooks during quiet time in the afternoons (you know that time when your kids need to nap but won't, so you institute quiet time so that you can recover from a day with kids), when they woke up in the morning, when they went to bed at night, when they did arts and crafts, when they built with their building toys and any time they wanted to play quietly.   They'd even listen to books while they were playing outside.

There was no way I could spend that many hours reading out loud to my kids, my time and voice just did not allow it.

The benefits were many.  My children built vocabularies second to none as they were listening to good literature that was written before editors decided to dumb down their children's offerings.   They developed incredibly good auditory attention skills and they developed a love of literature and reading.   They also learned to tell stories and read with expression.  I now think that all children, from toddlers and preschoolers  on up should be brought up with audiobook immersion.

Until my children were about  7 years old and became strong readers, this strategy backfired slightly.  Listening to all these audiobooks made my kids desperately want to read but their skills were not good enough to read the books they wanted to read. They were dreadfully disappointed with the pap that was on offer for children who are just beginning to read.  It took much coaxing on my part to have them develop their skills to the point where they could enjoy the literature they had been listening to.

Now that their abilities have caught up with their skills they still enjoy listening to audiobooks.   I've been adding up the hours they listen to audiobooks each day and came up with a minimum of 6 hours.  That's an awful lot of "reading" that gets done.  I give them a mix of classical literature, popular children's series and educational books to listen to.  Right now they are listening to Rick Riordan's "LIghtning Thief" and to Joy Hakim's "History of US".

I've found a great way to introduce a new series to my kids is to have them listen to the first book in the series. This works especially well if they feel intimidated by the books.  Before they started reading the Harry Potter series, they had never read books that thick and they were definitely intimidated.  I had them listen to the entire series on audiobook (They make great driving listening) and before they were finished listening to the series they started reading the book.  Having your child listen to a book before they read it helps them with the pronunciation of unfamiliar words and helps them set the tone of the characters in their brains.

Don't underestimate the importance of audiobooks in helping children develop good reading skills and a deep and abiding love of reading. I am convinced that my children love reading quite so much because audiobooks showed them how exciting books could be long before they were able to read unaided.