Bedtime stories going digital

I recently read an interesting article someone had left in my mailbox, titled Cuddling up with a good MP3, Bedtime stories are going digital by Melissa Rayworth, Associated Press.

Nearly a third of children ages 6 to 10 are regular users of digital audio players, according to the NPD Group, a market research firm. and thanks to entrepreneurs such as Don Katz, they can now use them to listen to bedtime stories.

In March, the Audible.com founder launched AudibleKids.com, where children can download books directly onto their digital audio players.

It seems according to Michele Cobb, Audio Publishers Association president when people put their kids to bed, they put them down with an audiobook.

Children and teen books account for 13 percent of all national audiobook sales in 2007, according to the Audio Publishers Association. That's a relatively small number, but it's nearly double the 7 percent that was estimated by the group in 2004.

AudibleKids, offers books for preschoolers on up and aims to further their interest by offering a social networking community where they can talk about books with one another and with parents, teachers, and even authors such as R. L. Stine of Goosebumps.

Random House's Listening Library has been producing audiobooks for youths for more than 50 years. What's new is the digital technology - companies such as Fisher-Price and Disney now sell kid-friendly digital audio players for children as young as 2.

Katz believes reaching kids through digital media may inspire them to have a life-long love of books - even the old fashioned printed kind.

"The world of reluctant readers is huge," says Katz. For many children, " reading outcomes tend to fall apart around third grade," which is often the same time parents stop reading to them.

Digital audiobooks, especially those narrated by talented artists, can "extend the pleasure of being read to by your parents into fifth, sixth, seventh grades," he says.Macmillian Audio launched a children's list this spring with narrations by actors Gwyneth Paltrow and Tony Shalhoub.

For some parents, the idea of children chatting online about Holden Caulfield instead of Hannah Montana is pretty compelling. But for those who spent their own childhood summers reveling in the crisp pages of paperbacks, there are real concerns about what may be lost if their offspring tackle a summer reading list via MP3.

The American Library Association recommends reading every day to children who are not yet in school. The group says it's not just hearing the story that's important - it's connecting the words to the letters on the page, and eventually learning to read them.

The association's president, University of Texas professor Loriene Roy, believes that audiobooks can play a valuable role in encouraging literacy, but they're not meant to be used exclusively.

"Audiobooks can help the good reader and the struggling reader," she says, because they help young readers to listen beyond their reading level.

She also makes a point to say that, "Parents are their first teachers and the best role models. If you want the child to be an independent reader, someone who will pick up the text, they're going to watch what adults do."

The temptation to skip the nightly routine might be strong, even though nothing beats a live performance, says Susan Linn, author of The Case for Make Believe: Saving Play in Our Commercialized World.

"In a way," Linn says, "this is another gadget for outsourcing parenting."

Even among today's multitasking teens, listening instead of reading might cause them to lose focus as they half-listen while attempting to reach the next the next level of Halo 3 and text-messaging a friend.

Katz says he isn't aiming to discourage parents from reading to their children. But with youths so fully embracing the digital age, he believes it's the best way to reach them.

"It's not just that very kid has an MP3 in his or her pocket," he says. "It's that there's a cultural and almost educational change going on that has to do with kids being extremely adept at multimedia and multisensory intake."

As a Books Aloud specialists for the library I'm always preaching the importance of reading aloud to young children. Reading aloud to children helps them with the skills they need to know before they can learn how to read. Skills such as print motivation, phonological awareness, vocabulary, and letter recognition. Audiobooks have their place, after all I've put them in my listening centers, but they can never replace the closeness a child feels when that child is being read to by someone they love and who loves them.

Just a thought!