Audio books for children draw educator's interest - 4/3/2008

Audio books for children draw eductor's interest Once upon a time, in the 21st century ... Tuesday, April 01, 2008 BY PEGGY O'CROWLEY Star-Ledger Staff Next time you see kids wearing ear buds and a smile, don't assume they're rocking out to Hannah Montana. They may be listening to the classic novel "The Secret Garden." Portable listening devices -- now a decade old and ubiquitous among American children -- are being used to listen to audio books, in part shifting comprehension from the written to the spoken word. Newark-based Audible.com, the largest provider of downloadable audio books, yesterday launched its AudibleKids.com division at the North Star Academy in Newark. Dozens of middle-school students got a free Zen Stone Plus MP3 player to download some of the 4,000-plus titles on the new website. Audible has been very successful: Amazon just bought the company for $300 million. Parents may be the initial core audience for the service, but it's drawing interest from schools, teachers and children's librarians as a way to encourage kids to read. Listening to literature is one way to reinforce comprehension, experts say. "There are four legs of literacy: the two R's (reading and writing) and listening and talking. When your parents are reading to you, you're an auditory learner," said Don Katz, the company's founder and president. Nonetheless, some worry the service may threaten traditions such as parents reading bedtime stories. "One of the things we strive really hard to do is encourage parents and children to read together," said Pat Scales, president-elect of the Association of Library Services to Children of the American Library Association. "The best way to become a good reader is to read, just as the best way to become a good basketball player is to shoot hoops." Many educators are seeking new ways to engage children in light of bleak studies showing steady declines in reading. A study released last fall by the National Endowment of the Arts found less than one-third of 13-year-olds read every day, and 20 percent of high school students were identified as non-readers. For children with learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, listening to books might be more appealing than struggling with pages, said Elliott Battzedek, the curriculum and collections developer for the Children's Literacy Initiative in Philadelphia. Literacy programs also encourage children to listen to a book while reading along with a hard copy, Battzedek said. "It's particularly good for kids who are struggling to read, who aren't reading at grade level. Children can talk long before they can read; our comprehension of spoken language comes well before reading." Parents can supplement their children's reading by playing stories in the car between lessons and practices or during vacations, she said. AudibleKids will offer selections ranging from nursery rhymes to books for early readers to chapter books to young adult novels. Some books that rely heavily on visuals, such as books that teach colors, are not as adaptable, said Brian Fitzgerald, vice president of AudibleKids.   Some books are narrated by a single person, others are acted out like a radio play, with multiple voices and special effects, he said. R.L. Stine, author of the "Goosebumps" series, who attended the launch, said he and his son are creating original material for AudibleKids. Author Brian Selznick wrote extra text for his illustrated novel, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," so AudibleKids could record it. Listening to stories shouldn't pose any risks to children's hearing, said Susan Brandner, the educational audiologist with the Newark school system. "As long as the amplitude is properly adjusted, it's fine. If someone next to you can hear it, it's too loud," she said. Scales, the library association official and a retired children's librarian, questioned whether the "digital divide" separating those who can afford computer technology and those who cannot might put audio books out of reach of low-income kids. It was probably no coincidence the company chose to launch AudibleKids at the North Star Academy, a charter school where 90 percent of the kids receive free or reduced lunches, according to principal James Verrilli. Some downloads will be free of charge, and other titles can cost as little as $1.99, Fitzgerald said, adding that company research has shown more than half of third-graders own their own MP3 players. "You can go to the library and download stories," he said of children who don't have personal computers. The dozens of kids at the event said they'd use the players for listening to stories, whether for pleasure or homework. "My English teacher makes us read lots of stories, so I will listen to do my homework," said Cristina Ramos, 12. Even so, Verrilli emphasized, "This is never going to replace books at North Star Academy." Visit AudibleKids at www.audiblekids.com.