Children's Audio Books

Is your child listening to audio books? Why not? I hope to convince you of the wonderful benefits of audio books for children with the following article:

5 Reasons for Parents to Love Children's Audio Books

Quick pop quiz! How can you accomplish the following things with the push of a button:

• Help your kids improve their reading skills?
• Grow their vocabulary?
• Help them sit quietly (willingly!)?
• Entertain them too?

Easy- Play audiobooks!

That's right Mom and Dad, listening to books on tape provide all these benefits and more for your child.

Did you know that for a significant part of their childhood, your kids' intelluctual capacity will be greater than their reading ability? That means that they can understand material when it is read aloud to them that they would not be able to read. Interesting isn't it?

My kids love audiobooks and I love that they love them. As a homeschooling Mom of 4 kids, I do a lot of reading aloud. Many days I read until my voice nearly gives out. Audiobooks give my voice a little break.

You can play books on tape when you're in the car running errands. Naptime and bedtime are also favorite times to listen to a story. (And if your kids are like mine, you wear out long before they do so books on tape are a lifesaver for helping them nod off after you've done the bedtime story!)

Listening to audio books strengthens your child's ability to listen, a skill very crucial for their academic achievement. Audio books also let your child hear fluent reading with a bit of flair... a lot of them are read by the author or professional actors.

If your child is struggling with reading, audio books associate reading with pleasure...so important if your child is to develop a lifelong love of reading!

Audio books help your child learn to visualize a story by using their imagination instead of the pictures (in contrast, watching television trains the brain to be lazy and rely on images).

Why not get your child on the fast track to reading success with the push of the play button too? To get you started, here are some of my kids' favorite titles:

• Charlotte's Web (read by the Author, E.B. White)
• The Jamie Lee Curtis collection (And I dare you to get through "Tell me again about the night I was born" without crying!)
• A New Coat for Anna
• The Maurice Sendak collection
• The Roald Dahl audio collection
• Brown Bear & Friends
• The Cricket in Times Square 

Also check out these fun audio books froom Learning Horizons called Know-It-Alls. My 8 year son loves these. Here are some of his favorites:

• Mummies! with CD
• Sharks! (Know It All)
• Horses! with CD

Have fun listening to audio books with your child!