To Listen or Not to Listen?

First off, Welcome, Welcome! to our newest subscribers – thank you for joining our caring, inquisitive community! It’s great to have you. Tell your friends to join us too!

Every four weeks, I address a topic suggested by a reader (submit yours at the bottom of this note!). Today’s is:

Great question.

(Btw, I won’t be addressing the excellent reading acquisition read and listen-along tools like Raz-Kids and others. This is purely about enjoying audiobooks in lieu of printed pages.)

To me, NOTHING beats the sight of a child’s gaze glued to a printed page. If the choice is between listening and good ol’ analog reading, audiobooks don’t stand a chance in my mind. However! There will be times when nose-in-the-book reading is not an option and …

… audiobooks are a surprisingly effective alternative to, say, screentime!

These days, especially:

• Recorded books are read by experienced actors skilled at bringing “life” into the text —

  • A single narrator can scoop you into dialogue and descriptions so masterfully you will feel like you’re watching a movie!

• Narrated text teaches kids about diction, pronunciation, emphasis, wordplay, alliteration

• Listening to spoken words builds patience and nurtures the imagination — imagine the doors that opens!

And the biggest perk, IMO – listening to books is a wonderful shared family pastime.

My family now listens to kids’ books when driving together anywhere – sometimes I wonder if we drive just so we can listen to books!

Here’s some of my family’s recent favorites to consider (all available on Audible which did not pay me for this unintentional product placement :):

Enjoy listening – tell me how it went!