I started listening to audiobooks with my kids a few years ago. My kids really love audiobooks as they think there are a lot of interesting stories that are fun to listen to. My son also loves to listen to kids’ songs in addition to stories.
Although we live in Japan and the predominant language for my kids is Japanese, in everyday life I often play them a quite popular Chinese audio app called Ximalaya. It is a kind of effective way to immerse them in a Chinese environment. And it really worked, my kids usually surprise me with some high-level words and expressions. They can sing Chinese songs after listening to them just a few times.
For kids just like mine who don’t know many Chinese characters, it’s hard for them to read Chinese books even picture books. So listening to audiobooks is a great method for kids to acquire Chinese stories and learn Chinese, it also keeps their interest on the long journey of learning Chinese.
Audiobooks have become very popular in recent years and are also a great way for children and adults to learn a foreign language. Through my children’s long-term listening to audiobooks, I have seen the following 7 benefits.
1. Audiobooks allow children to listen to more and more interesting books.
I buy my kids new storybooks, picture books, science books, and various other books every year, and we go to the library once every two weeks to check out 10 to 20 books, and even then we can’t keep up with the increasing number of audiobooks. With the development of audiobooks, we can listen to a huge amount of various types of stories, children’s songs, even science, encyclopedia, etc.
2. Audiobooks can help kids improve their vocabulary and expressions, thus improving their language skills.
Although some of the vocabulary in the audiobooks are not learned or heard in children’s daily lives, listening to audiobooks allows children to decode the unfamiliar vocabulary through the context of the story, this way, it makes learning easier and more fun.
My children often surprise me by saying some higher-level Chinese words and expressions that I have not yet used with them considering the level of difficulty, but they can use those words and expressions really appropriately. It makes me more certain that they do know the meaning of the Chinese word and the context in which the expression is used.
In addition to stories, younger children can also listen to children’s songs. According to Robert M. (Jan 15, 2022) Now You Can Use Songs to Expand Kids Vocabulary, too! Music is a great tool for memorizing New Information and can help children’s speech development.
3. Improve listening comprehension and thinking skills
Listening Comprehension is part of the communication skills such as the development of reading and writing comprehension, the multiple processes of comprehension in language when it is understood, interpreted, and spoken (Toolshero, Jul 3rd, 2021).
After your child listens to a story, have your child express in his/her own words what he/she hears from the story. Children like expressing themselves, they enjoy the process of telling stories to their family, which is a great opportunity for them to practice their expression skills and test their comprehension. And if your child is learning a foreign language, integrating listening to foreign language audiobooks into his/her daily routine can bring an effect of an immersion environment.
The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines thinking as “cognitive behavior in which ideas, images, mental representations, or other hypothetical elements of thought are experienced or manipulated.”
Thinking skills are essential in our lives, and good thinking skills help children to effectively analyze and solve the problems that arise in their daily lives.
Listening to audiobooks is one of the methods to develop thinking skills in children. When children listen to stories they are very focused and can quickly activate their imagination to think along with the stories. This way engages children’s thinking (images, mental representation, ideas, etc. ) which gets their thinking skills unconsciously trained.
4. Having a voiceover is vivid and stimulates children’s interests to continue to listen more quickly.
My kids love listening to audio stories, they find them so interesting. The audio stories are just like audio dramas, where the characters in the stories are portrayed very vividly by professional voice-over artists so that the children have images of the stories in their minds while listening to them. I can see my kids listen with great interest and curiosity, and sometimes they repeat the words that impressed them and even discuss the story with our family afterward. In my home, quite often audiobooks replace animations.
5. With Only one device, you can get your children to listen to a variety of audiobooks anytime, anywhere, without having to carry many books.
Many audio apps have the feature of downloading stories for free. Choosing the stories your kids like and downloading them to your phone or tablet in advance, whether at home or on the way, you can always organize the time effectively and get the audiobooks ready anywhere, anytime for your kids.
Books of course can not be replaced by audiobooks, but while the kids are on the way in the car or other transportations, or when your family is traveling, books may not be a good choice given the nature of the books that they have weight and take up space, audiobooks could be an alternative.
6. Switch from videos to audio, to prevent children from bad eyesight and other physical problems.
In the world today, a large number of video sources fill our lives. I believe that, just like me, all parents are worried that prolonged use of screens is harmful to children. But it is sometimes difficult to stop children from using screens especially when they are playing their favorite games or watching Youtube videos, stopping them may make them frustrated. This is where a great opportunity for audiobooks to step in. Audiobooks can quickly draw kids’ attention and get them into the story world.
7. Audiobooks calm children down quickly and smoothly.
I used to have a hard time getting my kids to sleep, they were so energetic even till bedtime. I read many picturebooks for them already but they still keep awake. Since the light had to be on when I was reading, the brightness of the room also made them hard to sleep. But with audiobooks, my kids would quickly crawl into bed and ask me to play them their favorite stories. I started the audiobooks, set a timer of 10 or 20 minutes on the audio app, and turn off the light. They could calm down quickly and asleep without my extra effort.
During the summer holiday, almost every day is over 30℃/86℉, so it is not realistic to do outdoor activities, but children are full of energy. Despite having done all the activities we scheduled indoors, they are still free and don’t know what to do, when this time comes, playing them audiobooks is kind of a way to make them feel relaxed but also can keep their brains active with adequate information.
In conclusion, listening to audiobooks has many great benefits to kids as well as parents. Playing audiobooks properly can help children make good use of their time as well as promote their cognitive development, and improve their comprehension and thinking skills.
Moreover, for children (and adults too) learning a foreign language, audiobooks can provide a great immersive listening environment whether at home or on the road and whenever the learners have time, they can listen to their favorite programs spoken in authentic voice tones.
Audiobooks have many resources waiting for us to explore. If you or your kid haven’t listened to audiobooks yet, how about giving them a try?
