Listen to Reading

Definition: When students are listening to stories they are building their fluency and vocabulary.

Fluency is one of the five components of literacy development. Fluency is just one of the benefits of listening to reading in the Daily 5. Listening to reading also builds comprehension strategies and student confidence. During Listening to Reading, students can listen to texts at reading levels that they can not yet read independently. Reading higher level texts exposes students to new words, different genres and new styles of writing. Through listening students can improve their vocabulary, practice active listening skills and develop other literacy skills, that they may not otherwise come across when reading books at their level.

The following video further explains fluency and why it is important:

Many factors effect this component of the daily five:

1. How many computers are available in the classroom?

2. How many sets of headphones are there for students to use?

3. What technology is available to provide students this opportunity?

4. Which students will benefit most from this strategy?

Anchor Charts:

A. B. C. D. E.

A. What should the student be doing? What materials will you need? Outlining these expectations will help student's understand their job during listening-to-reading. (credit Pinterest)

B. Diagram to explain what a student should do when they are listening-to-reading. (credit scholastic)

C. Student choices when listening to reading. (credit- Pinterest)

D. Another example of what listening to reading should look like, feel like and sound like, the expectations for students and teachers and a tracking graph of student reading. (credit Mrs. Meacham)

E. Why do students listen to reading and what does it sound like/look like/feel like. (credit L. Boulos- blog)

Forms to Use for Student Accountability (credit Pinterest) :

A. Non-Fiction B.

Resources worth investigating:

Learning Through Listening The purpose of this website is to provide support of the benefits of listening to reading and additional resources.

Getting Started This link will bring you to a teacher blog that uses the Daily 5. This post explains how she got listening-to-reading started in her classroom.

Pinterest This pin-board is filled with anchor charts and worksheets to ensure student accountability while listening to reading.

Sites with FREE audio books:

62 Places for Free Audiobooks

Classic Books Free classic tales, audio-books. Titles include: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Anne of Green Gables, Grimm's Fairytales, Treasure Island and Little Women

Fiction/Classic/Fairy Tales Children's story books that are in MP3 format.

Fairy Tales A mix of classic fairy tales and season/holiday related books.

Read-to-Me (Current Books) This website is a youth reading program to provide texts for students to listen to, titles are generally new picture books.

Celebrity Read-Alouds Famous celebrities read aloud classic children's books.