Listening is Reading Too! PDF.pdf - Circulation User

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Lizzi Ogle – Tremont District Library 1 Early Literacy Tip Tuesday October 20th – Listening is Reading Too! Hi everyone and welcome to another Early Literacy Tip Tuesday! In this video series we are discussing the Five Practices of Early Literacy: Talking, Singing, Reading, Writing, and Play. This week I want to wrap up our discussion on the practice of Reading with a talk on how audiobooks are great, especially for our preschoolers and other young children who are still learning to read independently. We’ve gone over how important it is to sit down with your child and read often, and audiobooks are great for making this possible more often! Audiobooks can be used during playtime, trips in the car, or when you want to enjoy a story, but can’t sit down together. Audiobooks can be used in lots of ways, as narration when kids are following along with pictures or text, or as a strictly audio story that a child can imagine on their own. If you’re using audiobooks for only their audio, kids can play or keep busy while still listening to the story and this allows them to enjoy longer stories without having to dedicate lots of time to trying to sit still and look at the same pictures for an extended amount of time. Remember how the Talking, Singing, and Reading practices are great for developing vocabulary and storytelling skills? Audiobooks are a fantastic combination of all three! And as a bonus, audiobooks help to develop critical listening skills. There’s no replacement for hearing a book read from a parent, but audiobooks also allow children to experience other narrators. These people are professionals, whose tone and timing can bring a whole new level to a story a child has already heard and enjoyed. Audiobooks are great for children learning a second language because hearing a native speaker speak fluently helps them experience clear pronunciation and native speech patterns. Lizzi Ogle – Tremont District Library 2 Audiobooks are also great for children who want to read independently. Children can follow along with the pictures in a book while hearing the text read aloud! Many audio picture books that you can find online include a sound like a bell or small ding to help children know when to turn the pages. This is great for little listeners learning how to correlate between text and pictures. Some picture books also come with CD’s that do the same thing, check for books that come with these or ask your local library what selection they have! For this video I want to highlight a newer type of book released by the Findaway company. If you’re not familiar with Findaway, they are the ones that create Playaways, MP3 like portable audiobooks for all ages. Their small devices are great because only headphones are needed and they are easy to use. For older kids, they are great about offering new releases and hit books like the Wings of Fire or classics like Harry Potter. In the last few years, Findaway released a product called Wonderbooks, an audiobook and physical book combined. These are great because they combine the ease of a playaway with the text of a book, and they don’t require headphones! Not only do they release chapter books in Wonderbook format, they also release picture books and early non-fiction! These books are excellent for on the go reading, or kids who want to enjoy a book independently. At Tremont Library, we keep our Wonderbooks above our Audiobooks back in the Children’s Area, check them out next time you’re here! If you want a bigger selection, check out the online RSA catalogue and search “books that talk”. Each library has their books labeled a little differently, but this should bring up a pretty good list of what you can find all across our Central Illinois system! Of course, you can also ask a librarian to help you find what you are looking for as well. Alright, that wraps up the practice of Reading for us. There are so many benefits to reading and many of them come just from making sure your child has access to Lizzi Ogle – Tremont District Library 3 different kinds of books, sees you learning and reading, and has read aloud time with you. You don’t have to be a theater professional, or have read every book out there, just make time to explore new books with your child and have fun while doing it. A great place to start that tradition is at the library and we’re here to help. In the next two weeks we’ll cover the practice of Writing, with tips on how to develop fine motor skills in little learners, and ways to practice writing with older learners. See you all next week! Sources:  https://www.readbrightly.com/6-engaging-audiobooks-for-preschoolers/  https://www.readingrockets.org/article/benefits-audiobooks-all-readers