The Benefits of Audio Books for Children

Along with writing and math, reading is an essential skill for your child to develop for school success. Unfortunately, many children do not have an interest in regular reading. Parents are discovering audio books, with reading accompanied by music and sound effects not only offer ease of use, but often also involve children in a way simply reading a book cannot.

There are many benefits to listening to literature with audio books for children. Some of them are:

• Audio books help develop your child’s imagination because your child must picture the scenes and characters described.
• Audio books promote a better vocabulary and understanding of words, their meaning, and how they work.
• You child may be encouraged to read the book upon which the audio is based.
• Audio books help children cope better with long journeys as they can be played in the car or even on trains and buses.
• Children who find it hard to sleep alone may find it easier to do so if they listen to stories when they go to bed in order to relax.
• Audio books introduce new genres of literature to your child, opening up a completely new world of books.
• Audio books develop listening skills because they require quiet concentration.
• Hearing books read aloud teaches an appreciation of phrasing.
• Authors write some books to be read aloud, and listening to them is more authentic than reading them.
• Audio books help your child understand complex language.
• Listening to a book read helps your child learn punctuation, enunciation, and emphasis, all of which bring out the meaning of a text and improve speaking and writing skills.
• Children who listen to audio books learn to understand language above their reading level, and learn new words and advanced constructs.
• Audio books are excellent tools for dyslexics and children with other reading disabilities. If your child has an attention deficit disorder, listening is more distraction-free than reading.
• Your child can listen to audio books anywhere.
• Your child may be motivated to read more by an author they’ve been introduced to through an audiobook,

How to Choose an Audio Book for Your Child

Make sure you preview the audio books you choose for your child, considering the following:

• Is the narrator’s voice pleasant, easy to understand, and appropriate for the subject matter?
• If there is music, is it in keeping with the text or is it too loud, detracting from the words?
• If there are sound effects, do they enhance the story?
• If the audio book is presented by a cast are their voices appropriate for the ages and personalities of the characters they represent?

As your child hears an audio book, they enter a journey where reading seems friendlier and more approachable. Your young reader listening to an audio book is more apt to establish a pattern of concentrating on the sounds of words without being interrupted by personal reading obstacles.

Although nothing replaces a parent sharing a book by one-on-one reading, audio books provide an excellent alternative. They help a child develop reading skills and give them hours of enjoyment.

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