Helping children to improve their listening, reading, vocabulary and comprehension skills.

Like all children, my own kids take great pleasure in listening to stories. Audio books helped my kids, Tom (8) and Lea (7), gain an important introduction to listening, which is a skill that children must have before they can learn to read.

While I have always read to my children, audio books have played an important complementary role.

It’s surprising just how beneficial audio books can be when it comes to a child’s development and education. For one, audio books make reading a source of pleasure and encourage children to learn how to read.

Listening to good stories (as apposed to watching them on TV) helps children grasp the rich variety of language and the way it can be used to convey meaning. Audio books bring stories to life and stimulate the imagination. It’s just like making a movie in your own mind – kids love the excitement of watching the images form as the plot thickens. The story becomes the child’s very own property.

As far as my own kids are concerned, audio books have taught them good listening skills, have helped greatly with their reading and have encouraged activities and brainwork far beyond the initial listening experience. To our absolute delight, Lea in particular now puts a great deal of expression into her voice when she is reading out loud.

Recent research also seems to suggest that while your children are having fun listening they are on the road to improving their reading skills, their vocabulary and their comprehension – which are all great for getting ahead in their school classes. Audio books like ours that come with the read-along text are particularly valuable because your child can follow as the narrator reads. As well as offering you an occasional break from reading, they also enrich your child’s multi-sensory experiences with books. Listening and reading along at the same time without interruption gives children a great example of fluent reading. 

And as well as all their entertainment and educational value, audio books also offer a fantastic way of making the most of time spent in the car. Lots of families spend a surprisingly large amount of time in the car these days. Audio books offer an excellent way of transforming travelling time into listening time (with considerable benefits for the driver).

All in all, then, it is clear that listening to audio books offers great benefits for children, from the practical expansion of vocabulary to wonderful encounters with the beauty of language and the structure of narrative. The deep pleasure that audio books can offer children of all ages provides a sturdy bridge to every other kind of reading experience and a solid basis for education and attainment.

Alan Twigg