We love it when parents read storybooks with their preschoolers everyday. But sometimes, for logistics or other reasons, it can be hard to find the time – especially for parents who are working long hours or shifts (and often commuting long distances), and parents who may have reading or other communication challenges themselves.
For parents who are struggling to find the time or energy to read with their kids regularly, we recommend audiobooks. While they lack the interaction you get from shared “live” book-reading, audiobooks can be the next best thing, e.g. when a parent is driving or away at work.
Here are two ideas (and 20 free resources) to help you get started:
1. Free Classic tales
Listening to audiobooks of classic stories – at home, or just as background sounds in the car – can help. It gives preschoolers exposure to enriched vocabulary, complex sentence structures, “story grammar” and important background knowledge of the world, including cultural references many of us take for granted.
Here are 20 of my favourites, each with a YouTube link for immediate, free access. Thanks again to CoreKnowledge for its suggestions, supplemented by some of our favourites:
If your preschoolers likes these, check out our free audiobooks for Kindergarten and Year 1 kids.
2. Do it yourself audiobooks!
A few years ago, I stumbled on “The Read-Aloud Handbook” by Jim Trelease. It’s a fantastic resource, which gave me the idea of making my own audiobooks. Thanks to new technology, it’s never been easier to do it.
Does your child have a favourite story – one they like to listen to over and over? If so, simply grab your smart phone, find the voice recording app (or, even better, the video function), and record yourself reading it. Email it to yourself and – just like that – you have an audiobook ready to share with your kids any time, anywhere.
Another great thing about DIY audiobooks: you can make them for kids (or adults) of any age. For example, here’s one I made for my (now) teenager a few years ago. I made it on Garageband, on an old iMac, but I could just as easily have done it with my phone these days.
Just don’t play this one to your preschooler – it’s a bit scary!
If you take us up on our tip and decide to make your own audiobook, we’d love to hear about it.
Good luck!
Principal source: Trelease, J. (1995). The Read-Aloud Handbook, Penguin Books, NY, NY.
Related articles:
- Is your child in Kindergarten or Year 1? 36 great free audiobooks to listen to at home or in the car
- 41 more free audiobooks for children: this time, for students in Years 2 to 6
- Read non-fiction books to your late talkers and preschoolers: here’s why
- Resources to learn grammar: using auditory bombardment to improve kids’ expression and grammar skills
- Speaking for themselves: why I choose ambitious goals to help young children put words together
Image: https://tinyurl.com/y4anhynb
Banter Speech & LanguageBanter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the PreLit early literacy preparation program by MultiLit, the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.
David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP). David is a part-time Associate Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney’s Graduate School of Health. David sits on Speech Pathology Australia’s Ethics Board and Professional Standards Advisory Committee.
41 more FREE Audiobooks for children: this time, for students in Years 2 to 6
We’ve had such a positive response to our list of free, quality audiobooks for kids in Kindergarten and Year 1. So we thought: “Why not finish the job?”
For school-aged kids with reading difficulties like dyslexia, audiobooks can play a big, positive role, in ensuring students continue to be exposed to quality, age-appropriate literature – even if they have difficulty reading them in written form. For students with dyslexia and other decoding difficulties, audiobooks can help mitigate the “Matthew Effect” – where good readers get better at understanding higher level language and reading by reading more, and poor readers fall further behind in reading and higher level language skills because they read less often.
Audiobooks can also be helpful for children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Students with DLD can listen to stories (or parts of stories) several times to help them to understand complex syntax and new vocabulary used in books that are often not found in conversational speech.
Enough, already! Just give us the book links!
Fair enough! Without further ado, here are 41 of our favourite audiobooks – all with accessible YouTube links.
As with our list for Kindergarten and Year 1 kids, we’ve selected books recommended in the Core Knowledge English Curriculum, a free, knowledge-based curriculum. You’ll note that some of the choices are rather advanced, especially for Year 5 and Year 6 students. We say give them a go anyway! You can always step down a level if you need to, and there is some evidence that setting high expectations for kids around literacy, reading and scholarship can help them to develop a habit of reading.
| Year | Story | YouTube link |
| 2 | Beauty and the Beast | https://youtu.be/3HarsLaeMqs |
| The Blind Man and the Elephant (Traditional) | https://youtu.be/4OXr1sgHZx0 | |
| A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens) | https://youtu.be/n3fN_-rupwo | |
| Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White) | https://youtu.be/TgsD-xdJdoM | |
| The Emperor’s New Clothes (Hans Christian Andersen) | https://youtu.be/l4AZyOA-w8g | |
| The Fisherman and his Wife (Brothers Grimm) | https://youtu.be/AxpqqABCz2E | |
| How the Camel Got His Hump (Kipling) | https://youtu.be/qq7Sm4eHj38 | |
| The Magic Paintbrush (Chinese Traditional) | https://youtu.be/UPRWE6Q4XL8 | |
| Peter Pan (James M. Barrie) | https://youtu.be/IG_z2L0DKKo | |
| The Tongue-Cut Sparrow (Japan) | https://youtu.be/nuY5TtL6UsM | |
| The Tiger, the Brahman, and Jackal | https://youtu.be/RCupvCCCFa0 | |
| 3 | Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll) | https://youtu.be/MPgJ4qXyW7E |
| Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp (Arabian Nights) | https://youtu.be/OYGv52vXCME | |
| Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (Arabian Nights) | https://youtu.be/EPhQAphrQe0 | |
| The Hunting of the Great Bear/ The Never Ending Bear Hunt (Native American) | https://youtu.be/bH2mCcivliQ | |
| The Husband Who was to Mind the House (Gone is Gone) | https://youtu.be/6oBaiZksCXI | |
| The Little Match Girl (Hans Christian Andersen) | https://youtu.be/EHnDT1SO8sc | |
| The People Could Fly (African American tale) | https://youtu.be/uitNI3iPrmM | |
| William Tell | https://youtu.be/eehpoMm5gpc | |
| Wind in the Willows excerpts (Kenneth Grahame) – The River Bank and The Open Road | https://youtu.be/4-Y8y8J3410 https://youtu.be/1cQpHdNM53Y | |
| 4 | The Fire on the Mountain (Ethiopia) | https://youtu.be/xvXoAadD8VI |
| Gulliver in Lilliput and Brobdingnag (Swift) | https://youtu.be/2iIAODGf8q0 | |
| The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Irving) | https://youtu.be/me-HYW5nPjQ | |
| Rip Van Winkle (Irving) | https://youtu.be/PQnTNmipwCw | |
| The Magical Brocade (Chinese) | https://youtu.be/Ubr9cykrtSw | |
| Pollyanna (Porter) | https://youtu.be/dj-mnIwnFFM | |
| Robinson Crusoe (Defoe) | https://youtu.be/6iQBVuFg9m8 | |
| Robin Hood | https://youtu.be/NRzFxdaijC4 | |
| St. George and the Dragon | https://youtu.be/wEwNd_yInKA | |
| Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson) | https://youtu.be/atBFFhV2Jcs | |
| 5 | The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Twain) | https://youtu.be/SF7lSyjmZwQ |
| Little Women (Alcott) | https://youtu.be/IyRaziFnN_E | |
| Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass | https://youtu.be/swYQ_-TNutI | |
| The Secret Garden (Burnett) | https://youtu.be/OKBbUrr9oQ0 | |
| Tales of Sherlock Holmes, including the Red-Headed League (Doyle) | https://youtu.be/wp_6Jg5pLYc | |
| Don Quixote (Cervantes) | https://youtu.be/Q7dNYcFUyjA | |
| A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare) | https://youtu.be/SRZ2SmmyMC4 | |
| 6 | The Odyssey (younger readers) | https://youtu.be/R60N9qX6fBE |
| The Iliad (younger readers) | https://youtu.be/q70HD3Gux7M | |
| The Prince and the Pauper (Twain) | https://youtu.be/E4_wkukogXQ | |
| Julius Caesar (Shakespeare) | https://youtu.be/zVEowZ-0A7I |
Related articles:
- Too many stories, not enough facts? Free tips and resources to boost your child’s knowledge and reading comprehension skills
- Read non-fiction books to your late talkers and preschoolers: here’s why
- Is your child struggling to read? Here’s what works
- Dyslexia vs Developmental Language Disorder: same or different, and what do we need to know about their relationship?
- Speaking for themselves: why I choose ambitious goals to help young children put words together
- For reading, school and life success, which words should we teach our kids? How should we do it?
Image: https://tinyurl.com/y4tzy3r7
Banter Speech & LanguageBanter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the PreLit early literacy preparation program by MultiLit, the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.
David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP). David is a part-time Associate Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney’s Graduate School of Health. David sits on Speech Pathology Australia’s Ethics Board and Professional Standards Advisory Committee.
Is your child in Kindergarten or Year 1? 36 great FREE audiobooks to listen to at home or in the car
To succeed at school, and in life, it’s important that kids have a strong core knowledge of literature, including culturally significant stories and fables. Access to this information is a great social leveler, and particularly benefits children who may not otherwise have ready access to it.
We have drawn our selection of texts from those recommended in the Core Knowledge Sequence, a free knowledge-based curriculum that aims to build strong foundations for later learning, including knowledge known by most adults and taken for granted by literate writers and speakers.
For each tale, we have tracked down a free, quality audio recording, including some of the now ancient recordings we listened to as youngsters ourselves! To make the list as accessible for as many people as possible, we looked for audio-recordings hosted on YouTube (rather than, say, a particular publisher’s website or podcast platform).
These stories are intended to complement – not replace – evidence-based phonics-based materials – designed to teach young school-aged children to read. Most are suitable for children with language disorders, dyslexia, and other communication difficulties.
In addition to this list, we recommend that children be exposed to lots of non-fiction, including science, history, art and music books.
Enjoy!
Related articles:
- Too many stories, not enough facts? Free tips and resources to boost your child’s knowledge and reading comprehension skills
- Read non-fiction books to your late talkers and preschoolers: here’s why
- Is your child struggling to read? Here’s what works
- Dyslexia vs Developmental Language Disorder: same or different, and what do we need to know about their relationship?
Image: https://tinyurl.com/y5x48sxc
Banter Speech & LanguageBanter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the PreLit early literacy preparation program by MultiLit, the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.
David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP). David is a part-time Associate Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney’s Graduate School of Health. David sits on Speech Pathology Australia’s Ethics Board and Professional Standards Advisory Committee.