Mastering literacy skills is one of the first steps towards successful learning!
Part of student’s fantasy world begins when they listen to gripping stories and for those who have learning disabilities, the more they are exposed to tools such like audiobooks, the better are their basic reading skills or reading comprehension.
Audio books have traditionally been used with second language learners, learning disabled students and struggling readers or non-readers. But with its widespread popularity, its use soon started to increase and now one finds it being used in many cases. Audiobooks have proven out to be successful in helping these students to access literature and enjoy books. Teachers using audiobooks have found it extremely for all the students.
Various research findings have invariably indicated time and again that audiobooks have powerful impact on literacy development. The process is much striking because by just listening to books is striking. And why its striking, you have got to read the entire research finding by clicking here. One should however note that it is not just the primary level struggling students whose reading comprehension and literacy levels develop with the use of audio books. In yet another research highlighting the impact of audio books on reading comprehension and enjoyment, findings reflect that audio books assist in various ways to increase the reading comprehension and enjoyment levels of the readers.
And, perhaps because of the findings that reflect on the positive impact of audio books on reading comprehension of students, the applicability of audio books in reading classes is only on the verge of increase. Many students are avid readers, while others are struggling to become readers and still others have given up hope. Audio books is something that brightens up hope of all the students and help them progress with the right ability.
Benefits of Audiobooks
To begin with, audio books are a great tool to bring stories to life in the classroom. Best of it, it keeps the students engaged. Listed are some of the major benefits of using audiobooks in the classroom
- Allows teachers to introduce students to books above their reading level
- Mould good interpretive reading
- Help students in critical listening
- Highlight important emotions like anger, humour or disappointment in books
- Introduce the students to different genres of stories writing
- Introduce students to new vocabulary or difficult proper names or locales
- Escape unfamiliar dialects or accents, old English and old fashioned literary styles
- Provide a bridge to important topics of discussion for parents and children who can listen together while commuting to sporting events, music lessons or on vacations
- Recapture “the essence and the delights of hearing stories beautifully told by extraordinary talented storytellers.”
Students can be exposed to complicated storytelling, no matter their reading levels and this is just one of the greatest benefits of using audiobooks to boost literary skills of students. Talking of boosting literary skills, we find in yet another research the results of the study reflected upon an important point that as students read along with audiobooks, this act of reading permits students to learn new vocabulary and concepts and to access different types of reading materials. Thus, the whole exercise assists students to broaden up their comprehension level and get exposed to a wide variety of genre. It is seen as one of the best ways of assisted reading process.
How Audiobooks help students struggling with Dyslexia?
Audiobooks can be a great tool used as part of special education program. By using audiobooks, a child can be helped to continue to learn content in the classroom despite having a reading disability. Students too enjoy using audiobooks to expand their literacy skills. It gives them the cool factor and as they read, it helps them comprehend literature-based assignments or those from the widely used Accelerated Reader Program. This software tracks the progress children make in reading.
Ways by which teachers can find free Audiobooks for download
Because Audiobooks are expensive so teachers cannot always plan out on spending large amount to build audiobook collection for the classroom. Instead, a feasible solution for the teachers is to make optimum use of the free resources helping the students take advantage of the wealth of free audiobooks. Take a look at the following website source from which, teachers can avail free downloads of Audiobooks.
- Verkaro.net has a limited collection, focusing mainly on classic literature. The quality however is quite good.
- LibriVox.org is a vast public library containing selections of varied genre but for the classics, there is no other website that has been able to surpass this site in terms of collection.
- Project Gutenberg is one of the most comprehensive collections of free audiobooks online. This site includes a selection in several world languages.
- Lit2Go provides finer looking free sources for audiobooks. It contains a vast collection of downloadable short stories and poems that one can browse by author, title, genre, collection and even reading levels (Grades K through 12). This bulk of audiobooks can be easily downloaded as a single MP3 or as short, segmented passages of specific chapters.
- Open Culture is one of the best sites with hundreds of free audio books, mostly in the classics. The site has great collections ranging from fiction, poetry and non-fiction written by the world famous authors.
Besides, the above mentioned free popular websites to find free audiobooks for download, there are are many other websites that teachers may refer many other available websites of their choice and help students to increase their reading comprehension in effective ways. And before we leave you, make sure to share your personal audiobooks with us so that students’ families and school communities learn on it, and, keep spreading the joy of listening to terrific stories being read to them aloud!
