Audio books to keep up with required reading? How to go about it

[SoTiredNeedHoliday]

Hi,

I am sure that the amount of reading required is becoming a big hurdle for my child. I want to have the option of using audio books where possible to take a bit of pressure off him.

Hows the best way to go about this?

Is there any special sites for students to get audio books?

thx

I don't know about special students sites, but Audible membership is quite reasonable. I think it would be a great idea for things like plays, which tend to make much more sense when you hear them acted rather than just reading them. However, in general, I find audio books take much, much longer than just reading. I'm quite a fast reader and find audio is about 5 times longer than reading, but even for a slow-ish reader it would surely take up more time.

That's a good idea OP. If you are anything like me, you spend hours in the car chauffeuring your DC around. It is dead time. Having an audio book that they need to cover in the car kills two birds with one stone.

What age?

DD2, 13, isn't a great reader but we have helped her vocabulary along by getting audio collections from the book people. Sounds like you need something aimed at older teens though?
For Plays we try to find a DVD version, as plays are meant to be watched.

thanks. My child is dyslexic and reading is a huge task, he can do it but it just feels like a challenge and when just starting secondary I'd like to be able to take the pressure off a little.

How does the audible membership work. You pay a monthly fee and you also pay for the books?

You can also get free audiobooks if you're registered with a library. They won't have every single book you're after but they'll have quite a few. And if you want classics you can get some of them online, google free audiobooks (they're out of copyright so tons are free).

For audible you pay a monthly fee for which you then get a credit which can be traded in for a book a month. You can choose to buy more books for additional cost and you can trade books in. You can take a 3 month break a year but I think that you need to remain registered in order to keep access to the books. My dc have Irlens so in a similar way they don't have the stamina to read for a long time but can listen for hours.

Also with audible, if you threaten to leave then they give you free credit 😁

You don't have to stay registered to keep access to books that you have bought with a membership credit. But if you do decide to cancel membership make sure that you have used up all your credits first as any unused ones will be lost.

Great idea! Audible is fab - but I would check whether it has the sort of books you need - are you thinking about books for English literature (in which case you'd probably find most relevant set texts on audible) or are you thinking more textbooks (which they wouldn't have). They would have say general interest science or historical biographies, but not the Biology text book (if that makes sense). NB Also check that you get the full audio book not an acted out version for English set texts. We got a great BBC production of all Jane Austen works, which the kids love, but annoys me as it's missing all the wonderful JA descriptions of characters.

thank you! All comments of great help.

Does anyone do this for their child?

We get audio books from the local library and buy some on Amazon. There is a huge choice out there if you just want to expose him to a range of books and broaden his vocabulary.

Horrible histories can be found in audio.