Using Audiobooks

I love using books in treatment.  I have a few different activities that go along with specific books (Where the Wild Things Are, Stroga Nona, The Wednesday Story, etc.).

Sometimes, I just get tired of reading the same book for each group. And my students probably get tired of me reading to them all the time.  So in an effort to save my voice and add some interest, I've started to use some audiobooks.  It's great to pop in an audiobook and press play.  It's easy to pause them for questions, and the students love hearing the stories.  When I am doing a theme book (I usually do Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs in the spring, for example), it's great to check out an audiobook from the library for a few weeks.

Now, not all stories have audiobook offerings.  For those books, I like to turn to YouTube.


I use the app on my iPad, and it's easy to save books I use regularly so I don't have to hunt every time.  To prevent ads from popping up, I usually make the video full screen.

Here's a video of Where the Wild Things Are:

And one for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs:

I usually like to follow along in the book while it is playing, because as you can see, some videos illustrate as it happens, but other books don't.

The other nice thing about using the audiobook version, is that I have a pretty good idea of how much time reading the story will take, which can help with lesson planning.

A coworker of mine went to a training last year, which advocated using audiobooks for kids with auditory processing disorders and for those with ADHD to increase audio training.  I suggest audiobooks regularly to some of my parents, but often they think it means a separate trip to the library and additional hassle or added cost by downloading audiobooks. This can be a faster way for parents to get the same outcome.  I like Tumblebooks (check your local library or school, many have a subscription) for the same reason.

*I get nothing for mentioning this app, by the way. I just like sharing useful apps that save me time/effort.