Benefits of Audiobooks in a Screen Heavy Environment
May 27, 2020
We’re excited to share reading resources from Molly Haskin, UTR’s Director of Army and Air Force Programs, and a licensed, certified Speech Language Pathologist, with you. These tips will help you support your child’s reading skills.
In the current environment, children have had to quickly transition to spending significantly more time in front of screens for daily routines, like school and even keeping in touch with loved ones. Some parents feel understandably hesitant to add more screen time into a child’s schedule, even if it is a screen showing a military loved one reading aloud. Luckily, a United Through Reading recording can provide double duty as an audiobook, and therefore continue to play a vital role in a child’s daily story time ritual.
It might seem counterintuitive to think about listening as a key component to learning to read, but evidence shows that audiobooks offer great benefits in improving a child’s reading development. To begin with, listening is the very first language skill a child develops, and studies show that 85% of what is learned, is learned through listening. Therefore, like any skill, the skill of listening should be practiced and refined- and audiobooks provide the perfect method!
Audiobooks allow a child to completely immerse themselves in a story without stumbling over decoding of new words. Because of this, children are able to comprehend text at least two grade levels higher, and often benefit from learning new vocabulary too. Regular use of audiobooks reflects in a child’s increased reading accuracy and fluency. It doesn’t matter if a child is an enthusiastic reader or a struggling reader, an audiobook supports their ability and actively promotes skill development.
A winning combination for improvement in reading ability is written print text paired with audio support. This is one of the many reasons that United Through Reading provides a new book to compliment every recording, whether made at one of our in-person story stations or through our app.
By using United Through Reading, whether watching the video or listening like an audiobook, while reading along with their copy, kids are able to continue building their literacy skills.
Service members can set their military child up for a summer of reading success by making one or more United Through Reading recordings! Start today with our app.