How do you use audio books in your family?

My dd, whom we adopted, has sensory integration disorder and her auditory processing was very weak when we got her when she was 3. She wasn’t talking yet. I incorporated alot of classical, especially Mozart and audio books.

The only special auditory helps I used was Jim Weiss’ Abadaba Alphabet CD and book and another speech therapy program CD for helping her speech.

Other than that, I just had her listen to excellent, age appropriate literature during nap time and playtime. I didn’t do anything other than that except ask what they thought about it, then much of the time, I’d get a run-down. It was a gradual, yet noticeable change. A few examples of what she listened to those first few years were Aesops Fables, Winnie the Pooh, other Jim Weiss tales, A.A. Milne poetry, Frog and Toad, Charlotte’s Web, Fifty Famous Stories Retold, other ones from the library (so many I can’t remember).

Now, at 9.5, her auditory learning is tied with her kinesthetic or runs a close 2nd, with visual being 3rd (she has visual issues, too). To strengthen thtese areas that are her weak areas:

• I use use Classical Math to Classical Music to help her with her facts along with Learning Wrap Ups for her hands.
• For science, I’m going to get the Lyrical Science series next year for supplementation.

For both my children, they both enjoy history, living science and lit. stories on audio. They like Diana Waring and Mantle Ministries Historical Devotional. They just finished listening to Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. Next will be another history supplement (When Knights Were Bold); I have them scheduled to fall right behind the other. I schedule them for a week at a time, since that’s how long they each have the radio/CD player and mark them accordingly on the SCM Org. When we’re in the car, we listen to books on tape (no cd player) that I find really cheap at various places.

They mainly are required to listen during our daily afternoon rest period-from about 1:30-3pm. If they want, they can listen in the evening, too; but I prefer that they read, then. Audios also come in handy during times of sickness. Last year, I had neck surgery; our literature selction was Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Well, we didn’t get to it quick enough so we ended up using an audiobook version while I recovered. Worked great. I am very thankful for Librivox, Jim Weiss and Jim Hodges.

Rachel

When my kids grow out of napping, I let them listen to an audio book in their rooms during that time. 🙂

My four year old has an extremely hard time sleeping, and actually goes to sleep listening to audio books.  At the moment he loves listening to the Dr. Seuss books, Charlotte’s Web, Jim Weiss’s bedtime CD, and some other mixed music/poem CDs.  It is a good way to help him settle down, and it helps with our work on improving his verbal skills.

Slightly funny thing…we do a lot with oral sentence completion with him, so tonight as we were about to go upstairs, I said, “Okay, now it’s time for…” , with the idea that he would finish the sentence with “bed”, and he thought about it and said, “Time for Yertle the Turtle!”  So cute.  He loves his audiobooks.

I guess the only other times not mentioned yet are mealtimes.  My kids often listen during lunch and only occasionally during breakfast (usually it’s the composer we’re studying or some religious music).  Never dinner because that’s dad time.  I find that come lunchtime I need a few minutes of quiet, meaning no kids whining or bickering or chattering about Pokemon.  We don’t have “afternoon quiet time” because we’re either doing chores or working with each kid individually.  

Where are some good sources of audio books, especially free ones?  

Heather

My Audio School is an excellent resource, and it’s only 14.99 for the entire year.

I’m a bit slow on the technology side of things…can you download the Librivox and Audioschool files onto an iPod or can you only listen to them on your computer?  We have an attachment where we can listen to the iPod on the car (where we do most of our listening).