I have long been a fan of audio stories and am convinced that introducing them as part of Immy’s afternoon rest time routine earlier this year has brought me at least an extra six months of continuing with a daily quiet time in her room 🙂
Audio stories are a wonderful tool for developing effective listening skills and work well with children aged 3 and up. We purchase stories from iTunes or Audible, or download free stories from Story Nory (thank you to Kate for the introduction) or The Story Home.
For children who are unfamiliar with audio stories it can be helpful when starting out to;
- Choose stories they are already familiar with
- Borrow stories on CD with an accompanying book from the library so they get used to listening for the duration of the story
- Listen together in the car, where they are a bit of a captive audience 🙂
- Play the stories as they lay down to rest, as they need to lay still to be able to hear the story.
Do your children listen to audio stories? Can you recommend any other sources of quality children’s audio stories?
Christie Burnett is a teacher, presenter, writer and the mother of two. She created Childhood 101 as a place for teachers and parents to access engaging, high quality learning ideas.
My children love audio books and have been listening to them since they were little. My girls love Milly Molly Mandy while my son loves Famous Five. They are bemused when I tell them that I used to listen to stories on ‘Vinyl’! (I still have three of my favourites: Mouse Soup, Grover Sings the Blues and Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes). We normally venture to the library to source our stories so thank you for sharing the links to further our collection of audio books.
I will have to seek out Milly Molly Mandy, Sarah, thank you for the suggestions.
My older kids listened to audio books a lot and then our cd player broke. I think it is time to invest in either a new cd player or a mp3 player for them. Thanks for the reminder
We are big fans of audio books. Junior gets car sick he tries to read in the car so they are a must for long car journeys and are also useful for bed times when the boys are not quite ready to nod off yet. We have lots of Mem Fox and Dr Seuss but Winny the Pooh is a favourite in our house.
Immy loves Winnie the Pooh as well 🙂
My love of audio stories started when I was young – my family collected the Story Time /Story Teller (UK) cassette & magazine collection – each cassette/magazine has 6 – 8 stories, many one offs, series, fairy tales etc – fabulous collection – which I am now sharing with my little boys. If you come across the collection at a secondhand store I recomend it. My eldest, now three, has been listening to audio stoires almost every night since before he was one!! He can’t get enough – we’ve almost exhausted the libary collection, Hairy Maclary, the Mem Fox collection, Postman Pat, Play School collections and many more. More and more books are being released with CDs . . . or why not make you’re own with you’re kids, reading you’re favourites into a mic!!
I love the suggestion to make your own, Jo
My almost 5-year old loves audio books. He just can’t get enough of them. We quickly progressed from Mercy Watson Collection to The Boxcar Children to Judy Moody. I think we’ve listened to everything our local library has to offer for kids younger than 10. Fortunately, he loves listening to the same stories over and over. Now I’m trying to find Russian-language audiobooks that goes beyond the regular fairy tales.
I have a feeling that audio book are my own personal life saver! We’re loving the Roald Dahl collection, the “How to Train your Dragon” series – most fabulously read in about 1000 different voices by David Tennant, and the recently found “The Velveteen Rabbit” beautifully read by Samuel West – including some lovely activities for kids following the story. Great alternative to TV in the mornings (not that we’d do that) and for surviving long car trips (even across town). Thinking I need more – Milly Molly Mandy sounds good, Sarah! Taking suggestions for a bright 5yo boy.
Every month Barnes and Noble adds a free book, typically read by the author to their site. My daughter loves them and it’s a great alternative to TV.
http://media.barnesandnoble.com/index.jsp?fr_chl=14c8ca491be89555b6ae619f97fac9bd90c871c5
Thank you for this suggestion, Kate
My kids, 8 and 5, love audio stories anytime! My son could listen to a full Magic Tree House story on CD at age 4!
Have you heard of Kiddie Records Weekly? It’s our favorite place to download free stories. See my posts on Fantastic Find: http://fantasticfind.blogspot.com/search/label/Kiddie%20Records%20Weekly