Do your young learners spend time listening to books during the week?
Not books read by the teacher or another adult (of course that type of listening is going on in class), I mean recorded books.
When I was in school, I absolutely loved when we listened to books on tape. When I started teaching (back in the stone age), I bought a set of Scholastics listening library books/cassettes almost every month. Later, Scholastic transitioned to books on cd's and I kept on buying them.
I have quite a large listening library for my classroom. But, it took a long time and a lot of money to build this resource.
I feel that listening to a text (read fluently) and tracking the words is a wonderful way to build fluency, accuracy, and comprehension in early readers. Having access to a large listening library is critical for students to gain the benefits from Listening to Reading.
As mentioned before, having a decent sized listening library can be really expensive. However, Epic! has changed the game when it comes to classroom listening libraries.
Epic! offers many books with a Read to Me option. The books are read aloud and the words are highlighted, so that students my easily track what is being read.
Oh, I forgot to mention the best part...EPIC! is FREE for classroom use.
After you sign up for Epic! and set up your class, you will want to consider creating and assigning collections for your students. By creating a collection, you can customize the books your students will access.
From my experience, the ability to create collections for your class really helps focus your students' listening time. Without collections, students could spend way too much time "shopping" for books.
My students really enjoy Listening to Reading on Epic! It is very user-friendly. I love the variety of fiction and nonfiction texts that are available.
While I still use my traditional listening library, Epic! has been a great addition to our listening time. If you are a teacher without a solid listening library, Epic! is a perfect resource for you.
If you are looking for a quick and simple way to hold students accountable for their Listen to Reading time, you may want to snag my FREE Listen to Reading Response sheet. It can be used with traditional listening libraries and with the read aloud books on Epic! (or any other digital resource).
It's hard to tell, but this printable is actually a half sheet. Click on the picture below for your free copy of my Listen to Reading Response sheet.
FYI, I am in no way affiliated with Epic! I have just really enjoyed having access to this resource and want to share it.
Thanks so much for stopping by.
Happy teaching!
