Listening to Reading

A student holding a book for others at the "listening station" 

One of the centers that students do daily is called "Listening to Reading". In our classroom, we have approximately 50 books-on-tape that have a voice reading the story while students listen and look at the pages. At this center, each student has a responsibility that changes on a daily basis. These responsibilities include being in charge of the tape player, choosing a book, putting materials away, or holding the book up for everyone to view. 

Many skills are being practiced in this center. Students are learning responsibility, learning to work together and help each other, and being exposed to higher level text. At this age/grade level, most students will not be individually reading texts that look like this. By listening to books-on-tape, students are being exposed to new vocabulary and expression, while still listening to age appropriate stories. 

As your students are growing as readers, it is still so important for them to be read to. I am so happy to see the excitement in their faces when they read by themselves, and they should keep practicing individually, but listening to an adult read is still a crucial part of their reading development. It may be a good idea to make a reading schedule at home, so your student gets to read to you, but also gets stories read to them as well. 

We are also going to begin using TumbleBooks at our listening station! Look for a post in the near future showing step-by-step how to access the thousands of books available to you online!